MasterObjects, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc.
Opinion
Trial Court Opinion
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
MASTEROBJECTS, INC., Plaintiff, No. C 20-08103 WHA
v.
AMAZON.COM, INC, ORDER DENYING
MOTION TO DISQUALIFY
Defendant.
15 INTRODUCTION In this patent-infringement action, patent owner seeks to disqualify alleged infringer’s counsel of record because in-house counsel worked at the firm that prosecuted the parent patent of the patents-in-suit. For the reasons that follow, the motion is DENIED. STATEMENT Previous orders described our facts (Dkt. Nos. 159, 206). In brief, patent owner MasterObjects, Inc. brought this action against defendant Amazon.com, Inc. in 2020 for infringement of several patents that touch on an asynchronous communication system that can suggest search terms based on the characters a user types into a search bar, i.e., autocomplete or predictive search results (Sec. Amd. Compl. ¶ 8–11). The current motion does not concern the patents-in-suit…