Judge Gilstrap Denies NPE Injunction Following US Government Brief in Support

Last year, the US government began advocating for the availability of injunctive relief in NPE cases through a series of statements of interest (SOIs) filed in ongoing litigation. In those SOIs, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) and USPTO have argued that such plaintiffs can establish the requisite “irreparable harm” under the US Supreme Court’s 2006 decision in eBay v. MercExchange because of the difficulty of valuing patents and calculating patent damages. A court has now weighed in on those arguments for the first time in one of those cases: On May 18, Eastern District of Texas Judge Rodney Gilstrap found that NPE plaintiff Collision Communications, Inc., which had sought a permanent injunction against Samsung, had established irreparable harm—agreeing with the government as to valuation and damages, while rejecting the plaintiff’s attempt to establish a broader presumption of harm. However, the court denied its request for an injunction, finding that the balance of hardships and the public interest, as also contemplated by eBay, weighed against the plaintiff.