An armada of 24 patent infringement cases, filed against 37 defendants by a prolific plaintiff with a single patent, could all get tried separately.
Bucking the status quo, Northern District of California Judge William Alsup refused to relate the 24 cases brought by Gregory Bender against companies from AT&T Inc. to Pioneer Electronics Inc. to IBM Corp. for infringing on his nearly expired patent on a type of electrical circuit. It means that each case will proceed in separate courtrooms with separate judges.
