SUE ROBINSON, District Judge.
At Wilmington this 25th day of April, 2012, having reviewed Technology Innovations' complaint (D.I. 1) and Amazon.com's motions to dismiss (D.I. 7) and for sanctions (D.I. 14);
IT IS ORDERED that said motions (D.I. 7, 14) are denied without prejudice, as follows:
1.
2. Plaintiff claims that defendant has "manufactured, used, offered for sale, and/or sold products, including but not limited to the Kindle, the Kindle 2, Kindle DX, Kindle 3G, the Kindle with Special Offers, other present and/or future versions of the Kindle, and textual and/or geographic information downloaded from Amazon to all such versions of a Kindle, either directly from Amazon or using devices other than Kindle via Amazon's Kindle Reading Applications in the United States, including in this judicial district," (hereinafter, generally, "the Kindle products"). (D.I. 1 at ¶ 29) Plaintiff asserts that the Kindle products infringe claim 24 of the `407 patent, which reads:
(`407 patent at col. 12:27-38) (Id. at ¶ 42) Figure 1 is a preferred embodiment illustrating the perspective view of an exemplary device in accordance with the `407 patent. (`407 patent at col. 6:25-30) Defendant argues that the complaint fails to allege sufficient facts to support a claim of infringement of the `407 patent. (D.I. 7)
3.
4. At the pleading stage in a patent case, the information required by Form 18 has been deemed adequate notice to pass muster under Rule 8. See McZeal v. Sprint Nextel Corp., 501 F.3d 1354, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2007). In this regard, Form 18 requires that the following information be provided in a complaint for direct infringement: (1) an allegation of jurisdiction; (2) a statement that plaintiff owns each patent at issue and, for each such patent, its number, date of issuance, and the general invention described therein; (3) for each defendant accused of infringement, identification of the accused product, process or method
5.
6. In its complaint, plaintiff contends that the inventor of the `407 patent, Michael L. Weiner ("Weiner"), knew that "entire printed works have been made available electronically . . . usually small hand held computers known as electronic books." (D.I. 1 at ¶ 22) Plaintiff argues that the term "printed work" in the `407 specification is "a work of any configuration in which information is presented for direct human perception," and the term "book" encompasses "not only conventional books, but other forms of printed information." (Id. at ¶¶ 25, 26)
7. The court is not prepared to engage in a claim construction exercise, construing the claim terms "book" and "printed information," at this stage of the proceedings, with no context provided by discovery or a motion practice. See, e.g., Internet Media Corp. v. Hearst Newspapers, LLC, Civ. No. 10-690-SLR, 2011 WL 2559556, at *3 (D. Del. June 28, 2011); Deston Therapeutics LLC v. Trigen Labs. Inc., 723 F.Supp.2d 665, 670 (D. Del. 2010); Progressive Casualty Insurance Co. v. Safeco Insurance Co., Civ. No. 10-1370, 2010 WL 4698576, at *4 (N.D. Ohio Nov. 12, 2010). The court may address with the parties an early claim construction of dispositive limitations once a full and fair exchange of fundamental documents has been accomplished. (See the court's "Default Standard for Discovery, Including Discovery of Electronically Stored Information ("ESI")," ¶ 4).
8. The court concludes that dismissing the complaint on the grounds that it fails to state a claim for direct infringement would be premature. Plaintiff has pled adequate notice for direct infringement required by Form 18. See McZeal, 501 F.3d at 1357. The complaint provides an allegation of jurisdiction. (D.I. 1 at ¶ 5) Plaintiff states that it owns the `407 patent, lists the patent number, date of issuance, and briefly describes the invention. (Id. at ¶¶ 7, 9, 11, 12) Plaintiff describes in detail defendant's products that infringe the `407 patent and has demanded relief in the form of damages adequate to compensate for the infringement. (Id. at ¶¶ 29, 32, 33, 44) In light of the above, plaintiff's complaint passes muster under Rule 8.
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10. Defendant moves for sanctions on the basis that there is no possibility of infringement of the `407 patent by the Kindle, either literally or under the doctrine of equivalents. (D.I. 15 at 5) The court declines to award sanctions at this stage of the proceedings, in light of the court's findings that plaintiff has properly pled allegations for direct infringement. However, as it appears from a plain reading of the `407 patent that a memory device "attached to a book" or "printed material" is claimed,
11.