UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY : : : : : : : : : : : :

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1 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW JERSEY LUGUS IP, LLC, v. Plaintiff, VOLVO CAR CORPORATION and VOLVO CARS OF NORTH AMERICA, LLC, Defendants. Civil. No (RBK/JS) OPINION KUGLER, United States District Judge This matters comes before the Court upon Plaintiff Lugus IP, LLC ( Plaintiff ) s Motion to Vacate, Alter or Amend Judgment or, in the Alternative, Receive Additional Findings of Fact ( Plaintiff s Motion or Pl. s Mot. ) [Dkt. No. 160]. Plaintiff s Motion is directed at the Court s March 26, 2015 Opinion (the Attorneys Fees Opinion ) [Dkt. No. 156] and Order [Dkt. No. 157]. 1 The Court declared this patent case to be exceptional pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 285 and awarded attorneys fees to Defendants Volvo Car Corporation and Volvo Cars of North America, LLC (collectively, Defendants ). For the following reasons, Plaintiff s Motion will be DENIED. 1 The Opinion and Order in question were issued by Judge Joseph E. Irenas. During the pendency of this motion, Judge Irenas unfortunately passed away. The case was reassigned to this Court and reopened for the purposes of deciding this Motion. See Nov. 3, 2015 Order Reopening and Reassigning Case [Dkt. No. 170]. 1

2 I. BACKGROUND AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY 2 Plaintiff originally filed its Complaint alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,806,926 (the 926 Patent ) in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and the case was subsequently transferred to the District of New Jersey in May The 926 Patent claims seats that automatically convert from a child safety seat to an adult seat. 926 Patent at col. 4, ll (claim 1). In May 2014, the Court held claim construction hearing to construe certain terms, ultimately adopting the plain and ordinary meaning of each term. See Lugus IP, LLC v. Volvo Car Corp. ( Markman Op. ), Civ. No (JEI/JS), 2014 WL (D.N.J. May 20, 2014). Following the claim construction hearing, Defendants moved for summary judgment of noninfringement. The Court determined that the accused products required a manual intervention to convert from the child safety seat to an adult seat, and thus did not infringe the 926 Patent either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents. See Lugus IP, LLC v. Volvo Car Corp. ( Summ. J. Op. ), 32 F. Supp. 3d 528, (D.N.J. 2014). Plaintiff then appealed the Court s summary judgment determination to the Federal Circuit, which affirmed the case summarily under Federal Circuit Rule 36. Lugus IP LLC v. Volvo Car Corp., 604 F. App x 932 (Mem) (Fed. Cir. 2015). During the pendency of the Federal Circuit appeal, Defendants moved for a declaration under 35 U.S.C. 285 that the case was exceptional, and requested the Court grant attorneys fees on the basis that Plaintiff s infringement claims were so substantively weak from the outset as to be objectively unreasonable and that Plaintiff also demonstrated bad faith in its 2 The relevant facts have been set out in in full in the Attorneys Fees Opinion. See Lugus IP, LLC v. Volvo Car Corp. ( Attorneys Fees Op. ), Civ. No (JEI/JS), 2015 WL (D.N.J. Mar. 26, 2015). A brief summary is recited here. 2

3 litigation conduct by improperly filing suit in the Eastern District of Virginia, improperly opposing Defendants requests to file a summary judgment motion earlier in the case, and by causing Defendants to prepare for a summary judgment hearing in which Plaintiff never intended to argue. Attorneys Fees Op., 2015 WL , at *3 (internal quotations omitted). The Court determined the case was exceptional under 285, following the standard announced in Octane Fitness, LLC v. ICON Health & Fitness, Inc., 134 S. Ct (2014). The Court ultimately awarded Defendants the entirety of the attorneys fees sought, $927, Attorneys Fees Op., 2015 WL , at *6 8. Plaintiff then timely filed this Motion to Vacate, Alter or Amend Judgment or, in the Alternative, Receive Additional Findings of Fact pursuant to Rule 59(e) and Rule 52(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. This Court has jurisdiction over this case arising under the United States patent laws under 28 U.S.C and 1338(a). II. LEGAL STANDARD The relief afforded under Rule 59(e) and Rule 52(b) is substantially similar. Gutierrez v. Ashcroft, 289 F. Supp. 2d 555, 561 (D.N.J. 2003), aff d, 125 F. App x 406 (3d Cir. 2005). Motions under Rule 59(e) and 52(b) are both motions for reconsideration, and the standard is highly similar, if not identical. See Vega v. U.S. Dep t of Justice, 178 F. App x 176, 177 (3d Cir. 2006). The scope of a motion for reconsideration... is extremely limited. Blystone v. Horn, 664 F.3d 397, 415 (3d Cir. 2011). The purpose of a motion for reconsideration is to correct manifest errors of law or fact or to present newly discovered evidence. Lazaridis v. Wehmer, 591 F.3d 666, 669 (3d Cir. 2010) (citing Max s Seafood Cafe ex rel. Lou-Ann, Inc. v. Quinteros, 176 F.3d 669, 677 (3d Cir. 1999)). A proper Rule 59(e) motion therefore must rely on one of three grounds (1) an intervening change in controlling law; (2) the availability of new evidence; 3

4 or (3) the need to correct clear error of law or prevent manifest injustice. Id. (citing N. River Ins. Co. v. CIGNA Reinsurance Co., 52 F.3d 1194, 1218 (3d Cir. 1995)). Relief is only to be granted sparingly under these rules, as reconsideration of a judgment after its entry is an extraordinary remedy. NL Indus., Inc. v. Commercial Union Ins. Co., 935 F. Supp. 513, 516 (D.N.J. 1996). A party seeking reconsideration must show more than a disagreement with the Court s decision, and recapitulation of the cases and arguments considered by the court before rendering its original decision fails to carry the moving party s burden. Facteon, Inc. v. Comp Care Partners, LLC, Civ. No , 2015 WL , at *1 (D.N.J. Feb. 9, 2015) (quoting G 69 v. Degnan, 748 F. Supp. 274, 275 (D.N.J. 1990)). A motion for reconsideration should not provide the parties with an opportunity for a second bite at the apple. Tishcio v. Bontex, Inc., 16 F. Supp. 2d 511, 533 (D.N.J. 1998) (citation omitted). III. DISCUSSION Plaintiff asks this Court to reconsider the decision to declare this case exceptional under 35 U.S.C. 285 and to award attorneys fees to Defendants. There are no issues of a change in controlling law or the availability of new evidence. Therefore, the sole basis for the motion is to correct a clear error of law or prevent manifest injustice. (Pl. s Mot. at 1.) Nothing in Plaintiff s Motion reaches the high burden placed upon Plaintiff to demonstrate clear errors of law or any manifest injustice resulting from the Court s original opinion and order, and so the motion will be denied. Plaintiff s Motion seeks to re-litigate the issues already presented to the Court, and merely demonstrates disagreement with the Court s original ruling as well as Plaintiff s own misunderstanding of the law. 3 Not only that, with respect to the reasonableness of Plaintiff s 3 Plaintiff attempts to argue that Defendants waived certain arguments based on the Third Circuit s standard for preservation of issues on appeal. (See Pl. s Mot. at 4 5.) The standard for 4

5 infringement claims, Plaintiff s Motion goes a step further and introduces two new arguments never before raised to the Court regarding the objective reasonableness of its construction. Plaintiff first argues that its infringement theories were reasonable based on a proposed construction that splitting the means-plus-function limitation of the independent claim into two parts. (Compare Pl. s Mot. at 5 6 (arguing its position was reasonable because it believed that the accused products need only perform the function of automatically retracting said child safety seat into a portion of said adult seat not retracting the seat to the point where the seat forms part of a fully contoured adult seat when said child is not located in said child safety seat ) with Pl. s Opp. to Def. s Mot. for Att ys Fees ( POAF ) [Dkt. No. 139] (arguing reasonableness based solely on Plaintiff s belief as to what constituted automatic retraction)). Plaintiff then argues for the first time in its Motion that this Court should consider Defendants failure to file a motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). (Pl. s Mot. at ) Nowhere in Plaintiff s original opposition to Defendants Motion for Attorneys Fees was this issue raised. (See generally POAF.) As the Court held, Plaintiff had no objectively reasonable basis to contend that Defendants manually operated seat infringed upon Plaintiff s patent which requires automatic conversion. Attorneys Fees Op., 2015 WL , at *6 (emphasis added). The arguments posed by Plaintiff in their motion do not justify a reconsideration of this determination under Rule 59(e). preservation of issues in briefing in front of an appellate court is entirely different from what a party may fairly be said to have waived in front of the trial court. 5

6 Plaintiff s request in the alternative, for separate findings of fact and conclusions of law or amended findings of fact and conclusions of law under Rule 52(b) is similarly without merit. 4 Findings of fact and conclusions of law, to the extent required need not be listed separately. Hazeltine Corp. v. Gen. Motors Corp., 131 F.2d 34, 37 (3d Cir. 1942) ( [T]he mere formal requirement of separation of findings of fact and conclusions of law has been held not sufficient to necessitate a reversal. ). The Attorneys Fees Opinion entered by the Court on March 26, 2015 sufficiently and adequately addressed all of the disputed issues and made the necessary findings that would enable an appellate court to evaluate the Court s decision under the appropriate standard. Highmark Inc. v. Allcare Health Mgmt Sys., Inc., 134 S. Ct (2014) ( Because 285 commits the determination whether a case is exceptional to the discretion of the district court, that decision is to be reviewed on appeal for abuse of discretion. ); Oplus Techs., Ltd. v. Vizion, Inc., 782 F.3d 1371, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2015). No further amendment of the Attorneys Fees Opinion is needed to address the issues raised by Plaintiff in its Motion. IV. CONCLUSION For the foregoing reasons, Plaintiff s Motion will be denied. An appropriate order accompanies this opinion. Date November 9th, 2015 s/ Robert B. Kugler ROBERT B. KUGLER, U.S.D.J. 4 As an initial matter, Rule 54(d)(2)(C) requires the court to find the facts and state its conclusions of law as provided in Rule 52(a). Plaintiff s argument cites primarily to Rule 52(a)(1), and overlooks the fact that 52(a)(3) expressly states The court is not required to state findings or conclusions when ruling... on any other motion. Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a)(3) (emphasis added). 6