14
Mar
By Eric Schweibenz
On March 7, 2014, ALJ Dee Lord issued a notice regarding the Enforcement Initial Determination (“EID”) in Certain Two-Way Global Satellite Communication Devices, System, and Components Thereof (Inv. No. 337-TA-854).

By way of background, the Commission instituted the underlying investigation on September 18, 2012 based on BriarTek IP, Inc.’s (“BriarTek”) complaint of August 17, 2012.  See our September 19, 2012 post for more details.  On March 15, 2013, former ALJ Robert K. Rogers, Jr. granted a motion by DeLorme Publishing Co., Inc. and DeLorme InReach, LLC’s (collectively, “DeLorme”) to terminate the investigation and for entry of a proposed consent order (“the consent order”).  See our March 19, 2013 post for more details.  In the consent order, DeLorme agreed that it would not import or sell two-way global satellite communication devices, systems, or components thereof that infringe BriarTek’s U.S. Patent No. 7,991,380 after April 1, 2013.  On April 10, 2013, BriarTek filed an enforcement complaint alleging that DeLorme violated the consent order.  See our April 11, 2013 post for more details.

According to the March 7, 2014 notice, ALJ Lord found that DeLorme had violated the consent order with respect to its sale after importation of accused components of the InReach 1.5 device.  However, the ALJ found no violation of the consent order with respect to the InReach SE device. ALJ Lord also found no violation with respect to activation of InReach devices after the effective date of the consent order, where those devices had been sold prior to the effective date of the consent order.  ALJ Lord further found that enforcement measures are appropriate for DeLorme’s violation of the consent order, and recommended a civil penalty of $637,500.

The notice issued by ALJ Lord released only limited information.  We will provide additional information once the public version of the EID issues in its entirety.



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