ExpoEvent Obtains Stay in Patent Litigation Against SMT Solutions, Inc.

New York, New York, August 15, 2012 -- Kenyon and Kenyon LLP obtained a stay of a patent litigation brought in the District of New Jersey by SMT Solutions, Inc. against Kenyon client ExpoEvent. SMT originally sued ExpoEvent and its founder, Larry Edinger, in the District of New Jersey alleging that ExpoEvent's table covers for the exposition and event staging industry infringed on two of SMT's patents. ExpoEvent filed a petition for ex parte reexamination of these two patents at the USPTO, and the examiner agreed that there were substantial new questions of patentability and initially rejected the claims of both patents. ExpoEvent then requested that the litigation be stayed pending the reexamination, and the Court granted the motion. In granting the motion, the Court agreed with ExpoEvent with respect to all three of the relevant stay considerations, and found that they all favored staying the case. First, the court rejected SMT's claims of undue prejudice, specifically accepting ExpoEvent's argument that the sales at issue were not sufficient to constitute undue prejudice. Second, the court rejected SMT's argument that the stay would not simplify the issues of the case in light of two additional patents being added to the case subsequent to requests for reexamination. In finding for ExpoEvent with respect to the second consideration, the court agreed with ExpoEvent that all of the patents in suit were interrelated in subject matter and that the validity issues related to the original patents would impact the later ones. Finally, the court agreed with ExpoEvent that the reexamination requests and motion to stay were brought early in the case, and thus that the procedural stage of the case favored a stay.

As released by the former Kenyon & Kenyon LLP.