An intellectual property team of Kongsik Kim, John Bauer, and Ashley Summer earned a complete patent victory before the International Trade Commission (ITC), which had begun an investigation against our client, Raphas, Co., alleging patent infringement of its core technology: drug delivering dissolving microneedles. Unlike district court patent litigation, an ITC plaintiff (“Complainant”) is required to establish the existence a “domestic industry.” The Nelson Mullins team, recognizing Complainant’s case for establishing a domestic industry was thin, successfully moved the ITC for an expedited 100-day schedule to prove that Complainant could not meet its burden. 

Once expedited discovery was completed (document and interrogatory requests, RFAs, and 30(b)(b)(6) and personal depositions), Raphas and the Office of Unfair Import Investigations (OUII) each filed its briefs. (Another unique aspect of an ITC proceeding is the presence of the OUII, a  neutral third-party litigant representing the government.) Significantly, based on the evidence and the admissions the team obtained in discovery, the OUII’s brief agreed with our position. Once the Complainant saw our brief and the OUII’s brief, it knew it had no chance to win the domestic industry argument and withdrew its complaint.