On January 19, 2017, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati obtained a summary judgment of noninfringement on behalf of clients Bloomberg and Charles Schwab in a case brought by Quest Licensing after Judge Gregory M. Sleet of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware heard oral argument on the motion sua sponte at a pretrial conference on December 19, 2016. According to reports, Judge Sleet has only allowed five summary judgment motions to be filed over the past 15 years, and has granted none of them on the issue of infringement.

Quest brought patent infringement lawsuits against several defendants, including Bloomberg, Charles Schwab, and Interactive Data, in the District of Delaware. Quest asserted that the defendants' mobile applications infringe on its patent, U.S. Patent No. 7,194,468. The patent is directed to an apparatus and a method enabling a subscriber to receive via mobile telecommunications network information updated in real time, notably financial market information. In particular, the patent requires receiving "changing information" from the stock exchanges and/or supplying the "changing information" to the mobile devices. In his March 11, 2016, Claim Construction Order, Judge Sleet construed the term "changing information" to mean "only data that has changed."

The accused mobile applications of Bloomberg and Schwab provide access to a myriad of financial market and account information, including stock-price quotes and market data analysis and news. After all the defendants except for Bloomberg, Schwab, and Interactive Data had settled, the remaining defendants moved for summary judgment of noninfringement, arguing that their accused systems do not receive or supply "only data that has changed," but rather supply both changing and non-changing information. On January 19, 2017, Judge Sleet issued an order granting the defendants' motion for summary judgment of noninfringement, finding that there is no dispute that the accused systems receive and send the stock symbol—which is not "changing information"—every single time the systems receive data from the exchanges or supply data to mobile users. The court indicated that Quest's assertion that stock symbols constitute changing information "flies directly in the face of the court's claim construction," and that Quest's expert "admitted that non-changing ticker symbols are always included every time the price information is communicated" and "failed to apply the court's claim construction." Judge Sleet's order followed oral argument held less than three weeks prior to the trial commencement date.

The Wilson Sonsini team representing Bloomberg and Charles Schwab in the matter included partner Michael Levin.

Click here to view the court's order.