No Litigation Misconduct for Fee Award 
By Deborah Elkins
Published: October 3, 2012
Tags: Intellectual Property, Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., U.S. District Court - Eastern District
A licensor company that agreed to dismiss as defendants two companies whose use of a patent licensed by the third-party licensee allegedly violated the licensor’s patent does not have to pay attorney’s fees as a sanction under 35 U.S.C. § 285, as the Norfolk U.S. District Court declines to declare this an “Exceptional Case” under [...]
Personal Jurisdiction from Website Ads
By Deborah Elkins
Published: July 12, 2012
Tags: Civil Procedure, Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., U.S. District Court - Eastern District
A Newport News U.S. District Court has personal jurisdiction over a New York defendant whose website advertised on-the-job training programs in Virginia, allegedly using marks and training materials from plaintiff’s company, in violation of the Lanham Act. Plaintiff Jeffrey Nelson is the sole owner and operator of Expert OJT, which provides on-the-job training programs to [...]
No Claim for ‘Interactive Community’
By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 8, 2012
Tags: Intellectual Property, Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., U.S. District Court - Eastern District
A reasonable jury could conclude from testimony of the parties’ experts in this patent infringement suit against Twitter Inc., that the method for creating an “interactive virtual community of famous people” claimed by plaintiff’s ‘309 patent was not an interactive virtual community, as defined by the experts, and the Norfolk U.S. District Court denies plaintiff’s [...]
No Sanctions in Overtime Pay Case
By Deborah Elkins
Published: December 15, 2011
Tags: Employment, Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., U.S. District Court - Eastern District
Although an employer won summary judgment in plaintiffs’ overtime-pay suit, plaintiff employees’ suit was not “frivolous” under Rule 11; the Norfolk U.S. District Court says the line is not clear between non-seamen and “seamen” who are exempt from federal overtime pay provisions. The district court granted summary judgment to employer on the ground that plaintiffs’ [...]
Lawyer’s patent infringement claim against Twitter fails – Defense Verdict
By Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Published: November 14, 2011
Tags: Federal Courts, Intellectual Property, Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., Million-Dollar Defense Verdicts
The suit against Twitter was brought by Virginia-based VS Technologies LLC, which was formed by intellectual property lawyer Dinesh Agarwal, who obtained a patent in 2002 for “an interactive virtual community of famous people.” He sought $40 million in damages from Twitter, the world’s largest social networking and microblogging site. A federal jury in Norfolk [...]
Inventor Sues Twitter Over ‘Interactive’ Celebrity Patent
By Deborah Elkins
Published: October 17, 2011
Tags: Intellectual Property, Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., U.S. District Court - Eastern District
An inventor who is suing Twitter for infringement of his 2002 patent of a system for “an interactive virtual community of famous people,” or people who want to be famous, has an Alexandria U.S. District Court provide a claim construction for the term “field of endeavor,” but the court defers construction of “interact with the [...]
Copyright Owner Can Subpoena Info from ISP
By Deborah Elkins
Published: July 13, 2011
Tags: Civil Procedure, Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., U.S. District Court - Eastern District
A copyright owner gets “expedited discovery” to track down the IP addresses of some of the 30 defendant “John Doe” users who allegedly used BitTorrent for illegal downloads; a Norfolk U.S. District Court grants plaintiff’s ex parte motion to serve Rule 45 subpoenas on Internet service providers. Plaintiff alleges defendants used BitTorrent based peer-to-peer networks [...]
Seaman Has No Overtime Pay Claim
By Deborah Elkins
Published: June 6, 2011
Tags: Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., Labor, U.S. District Court - Eastern District
A Norfolk U.S. District Court dismisses this overtime pay suit filed by a captains and deckhands who worked on mini-tugs, as 29 U.S.C. § 213(b)(6) exempts “any employee employed as a seaman” from the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime pay requirements. In this case, there is no dispute over plaintiffs’ duties. The DOL advises that [...]
Japanese Anime Cartoons Are Child Porn
By Deborah Elkins
Published: April 19, 2011
Tags: Criminal, Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., U.S. District Court - Eastern District
A Newport News U.S. District Court convicts a soldier of abusive sexual contact with a six-year-old girl, as a lesser included offense of aggravated sexual abuse, and of multiple counts of possession of child pornography, including Japanese anime cartoons that depict adults’ sexual assaults on children. Some jurisdictions do not recognize abusive sexual contact as [...]
No Sealed Settlement in Overtime-Pay Case
By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 25, 2011
Tags: Judge Henry Coke Morgan Jr., Labor, U.S. District Court - Eastern District
A Norfolk U.S. District Court denies a joint motion to seal a company’s settlement with 11 Dollar General Store employee who claimed overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act, despite the company’s claim that disclosure could lead the hundreds of other claimants to overvalue their own cases. Originally, 2,400 plaintiffs joined a collective action [...]
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