Destiny Tool v. SGS Tools Co.

MEMORANDUM *

Destiny Tool (“Destiny”), SGS Tools Company (“SGS”), and Dauphin Precision Tool, LLC (“Dauphin”), all manufacture and sell carbide end mills, precision cutting heads that have many industrial uses. SGS and Dauphin (collectively, “Defendants”) own U.S. Patent No. 5,049,009 (“the '009 patent”), which claims an improved rotary cutting end mill. In 2004, Defendants filed suit in the Northern District of Ohio alleging that Destiny’s products infringed the '009 patent. After the Ohio district court in 2006 granted Defendants’ motion to dismiss their suit with prejudice, Destiny filed suit in the Northern District of California accusing Defendants of malicious prosecution and abuse of process under state law, as well as monopolization and attempted monopolization under the Sherman Act. Destiny appeals from the district court’s dismissal of all four claims. Defendants cross-appeal from the district court’s resolution of subsidiary preemption, statute of limitation, and res judicata issues. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm.

I

We review de novo a dismissal for failure to state a claim pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Madison v.…