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2005 PATENT ADVISORY COMMITTEE'S PREFACE

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2077, the Court appointed an Advisory Committee to prepare a draft of the 2005 Amendments and to make recommendations to the Court with respect to local rules for patent cases in the District of Minnesota. The Advisory Committee consisted of the following members:

The Committee wishes to express its gratitude to all those who aided its efforts.  Special thanks are due to a few individuals.  Wendy S. Osterberg, the Chief Deputy Clerk, provided invaluable information and support, and she was ably assisted by Karen Mack and Mary McKay.  Finally, we would like to recognize Rachel Clark Hughey and Annie Huang for their contributions to the formulation of these Rules. 

These Rules are designed to ease, simplify, and reduce the cost of patent practice in the District of Minnesota.  Patent cases are frequently complex. These Rules are designed to streamline the pre-trial and claim construction processes.

The bar bears the dual role as zealous advocates for its clients as well as its concomitant duties as officers of the Court.  It is expected by the Court that counsel will emphasize and discuss both of these obligations with their clients.

The Court has the ability to use its traditional means of shifting costs or imposing sanctions for any practice which impedes the efforts under these amendments to further the goals established in Rule 1 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

  The Committee prepared its draft and made its recommendations with the following objects in mind:

1.         Reducing the cost and burden of patent litigation in Minnesota without sacrificing fairness.

2.         Promoting consistency and certainty in how patent cases are handled in Minnesota.

3.         Addressing issues that are recurring in most patent cases and that all litigants and the Courts have some common interests in managing by rule, in particular disclosure, discovery, and claim construction issues.

4.         Promoting the greatest and most accessible understanding of patent issues and technical issues by litigants, Courts, and juries.

5.         Minimizing the discovery procedural disputes that often lead to the same outcome and could be resolved at less cost and burden, at least presumptively, by rule rather than by motion.

6.         Discouraging expensive and/or burdensome litigation procedures that do not substantially contribute to the resolution of patent cases.

With these objects and priorities in mind, the Committee considered a number of rules and procedures that have been used in the District of Minnesota and in other districts in patent cases, including in particular the case management orders for patent cases that have been entered in patent cases by individual judges in the District of Minnesota with patent-specific provisions, as well as the local rules in the District of Delaware and the Northern District of California.  From a large number of proposals, the Committee focused its draft and recommendations on the areas that, in the opinion of the Committee, are likely to arise in a majority of patent cases and which lend themselves to management by rules that should not advantage or disadvantage any particular litigants or groups, but should reduce time, burden, and expense when governed by rule rather than motion practice or stipulation.

Each Local Rule is followed by an effective date.  The Local Rules with an effective date of 2005 were adopted at the recommendation of the 2005 Patent Advisory Committee.

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