On February 6, 2013, Judge O’Connor issued an Order (available here) in the Summit 6 patent infringement case granting Facebook’s motion to sever Summit 6’s claims against Facebook from Summit 6’s claims against Samsung.
Summit 6 did not oppose the motion to sever (and in fact agreed that Samsung should be severed for trial), but Samsung did. Judge O’Connor addressed the Federal Circuit’s recent decision in In re EMC, and found that “trial with two independent defendants each involving different accused products or processes would be prejudicial and potentially confusing to the jury.” Accordingly, Facebook’s motion was granted.
Summit 6 is represented by Theodore Stevenson, III, Ashley Moore, Douglas Cawley, James Quigley, John Campbell, Kathy Li, Kevin Burgess, Mitchell Sibley, Phillip Aurentz, and Richard Kamprath, all of McKool Smith, P.C.; and Bradley Caldwell, of Caldwell Cassady Curry, P.C.
Samsung is represented by Brian Erickson, Andrew Valentine, Chang Kim, Claudia Frost, Erik Fuehrer, James Nelson, Mark Fowler, and Todd Patterson, all of DLA Piper LLP.
Facebook is represented by Deron Dacus, of The Dacus Firm, P.C.; Amy Lemyre, Chanson Chang, Christopher Nalevanko, Corey Manley, Gregg LoCascio, Jason Wilcox, John Dubiansky, and Jonathan Brightbill, all of Kirkland & Ellis LLP; and Michael Hurst, of Gruber Hurst Johansen & Hail LLP.