PHILIP A. BRIMMER, District Judge.
This matter is before the Court on the parties' briefs regarding whether the Court should continue to exercise jurisdiction over the defendants' counterclaims [Docket Nos. 944, 945, 946]. On February 15, 2012, the Court granted the motions for summary judgment filed by defendants Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. and Sony Electronics Inc. (the "Sony defendants") [Docket Nos. 701, 729] and by defendant NVIDIA Corporation ("NVIDIA") [Docket Nos. 872, 876, 882, 887] and dismissed all of plaintiff's claims, leaving only defendants' counterclaims. See Docket No. 941.
As the Court noted in the February 15 Order, a ruling of non-infringement does "not moot in the Article III sense of the term" a counterclaim seeking a declaratory judgment of invalidity, see Benitec Australia, Ltd. v. Nucleonics, Inc., 495 F.3d 1340, 1353 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing Cardinal Chemical Co. v. Morton Int'l, Inc., 508 U.S. 83, (1993)), or of unenforceability on account of inequitable conduct. See Zenith Electronics Corp. v. PDI Communication Systems, Inc., 522 F.3d 1348, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2008). Rather, a "district court judge faced with an invalidity counterclaim challenging a patent that it concludes was not infringed may either hear the claim or dismiss it without prejudice, subject to review only for abuse of discretion." Liquid Dynamics Corp. v. Vaughan Co., Inc., 355 F.3d 1361, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Therefore, the Court ordered that the parties file the present briefs addressing whether the Court should exercise jurisdiction over defendants' counterclaims. See Docket No. 941 at 10.
Plaintiff BIAX Corporation ("BIAX") requests that defendants' counterclaims be dismissed without prejudice. NVIDIA agrees, asking that the Court dismiss its counterclaims without prejudice. NVIDIA's agreement is based, at least in part, on BIAX's assurance that it assert the present patents against any future NVIDIA products. See Docket No. 945 at 2; see Cardinal Chemical, 508 U.S. at 99-100 (stating that a court may consider, when deciding whether to retain invalidity counterclaims, whether "a company once charged with infringement [is] concerned about the risk of similar charges if it develops and markets similar products in the future"). Therefore, the Court identifies no reason to retain the NVIDIA counterclaims.
The Sony defendants, however, have their own counterclaims against BIAX. BIAX has offered them the same assurance regarding future Sony products, but the Sony defendants are concerned that such an assurance would not preclude BIAX from asserting claims regarding present Sony products that are not included in this case. The Sony defendants, however, wish to have the Court only proceed on their inequitable conduct counterclaim and to dismiss without prejudice their invalidity counterclaim.
Despite asking for the Court to dismiss one counterclaim without prejudice and to proceed with another, the Sony defendants fail to address the clear judicial economy issues that doing so might present. As BIAX points out, a decision by the Tenth Circuit on appeal of the Court's claim construction and summary judgment rulings could impact the resolution of the defendants' counterclaims.
For these reasons, the Court does not believe it would be prudent to proceed on one counterclaim asserted by only two of the three defendants. See Mangosoft, Inc. v. Oracle Corp., 482 F.Supp.2d 179, 181 (D.N.H. 2007) ("[H]aving considered the procedural posture of the case, the pleadings and papers filed by the parties, and the fact that the [] patent's invalidity is not `plainly evident,' the court concludes that the most prudent way to resolve this matter, and the most cost-effective way for the parties, is to dismiss Oracle's counterclaim, without prejudice.").
Therefore, it is