Free Status Report - District Court of Delaware - Delaware

Case 1:07-cv—OO442-JJF Document 25 Filed O1/31/2008 Page 1 of 2
M `
Ol“1“lSj3.IIi€S LLP
Mary B. Matterer
3028886960
[email protected]
Januaiy 31, 2008
VLA EFILING AND HAND DELIVERY
The Honorable Joseph J. Faman, Jr.
USDC for the District of Delaware
844 King Street
Wilmington, DE 19801 n
Re: Rates Technology Inc v. Qwest Communications Corporation et al.
Civil Action No. 07-442 QJJF)
Dear Judge Farnan:
Our firm represents plaintiff, Rates Technology Inc., in the above captioned case. We
make this report on plaintiffs behalf pursuant to your request at the hearing of October 5, 2007
in this action.
This case is a patent inhingement action involving two patents owned by plaintiff
relating respectively to a device for the routing telephone calls and to a method and system of
updating a call rating database. Defendants provide Internet telephone services through their
OneF lex Systems.
In response to the Complaint, defendants filed a motion to dismiss or stay the case
pending a decision in a reexamination previously filed in the patent office against plaintiffs
patent relating to the call routing device. The other one of the two asserted patents is not under
reexamination.
As discussed at the hearing, the claims of the patent under reexamination were
preliminarily rejected as anticipated by each of four references relating to prior art telephone
systems and certain claims were rejected as unpatentable over combinations of those references.
In July of 2007, RTI responded to those preliminary rejections by arguing that the references
taken individually did not anticipate because they did not teach all of the material features of the
claims and by submitting the declarations of the inventors showing an earlier date of invention to
overcome the combinations of references. Further, a set of new claims were presented for
consideration.
500 Delaware Avenue, Suite 1500 [ Wilmington, DE 19801-1494 T302.888.6800 F302571.1750
Mailing Address P.O. Box 2306 | Wilmington, DE 19899-2306 www.morrisjames.com

Case 1:07-cv—OO442-JJF Document 25 Filed O1/31/2008 Page 2 of 2
The Honorable Joseph J. Farnan
January 31, 2008
Page 2
At the hearing, the case was stayed for several months at defendants’ request but a firm
trial date was set. Counsel for the parties were required to report the status of the reexamination
by February 1, 2008. That is the purpose of this letter.
Unfortunately, as of today, there has been no response by the Examiner to RTI’s
submission regarding the preliminary rejections and the newly presented claims and hence there
has been no decision in the reexamination. Thus, the status of the reexamination remains the
same as it was at the time of the October hearing.
Plaintiff believes that this case should not be delayed any longer and urges that the stay
be lifted. RTI reminds the court that only one of the two patents involved in this case is under
reexamination and thus the decision in the reexamination, which will not be final for many
months if the response of the patent office to RTI’s submission is not totally favorable to RTI,
will not resolve all of the issues in this case. Moreover, since the trial date is set, additional delay
will further reduce the time for discovery and motion practice. Lifting the stay now will allow
the case to proceed and defendants’ pending motion, which is now fully briefed, to be considered
now, so that discovery can proceed.
We stand ready to provide any additional information that the Court may require and
thank the Court for its consideration.
Respectfully submitted,
Mary B. tterer
cc: Steven M. Bauer, Esq.
Melanie K. Sharp, Esq.
Robert L. Epstein, Esq.