Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. et al. v. Raymarine UK Limited et al.

I'll research this case thoroughly before drafting. Let me start with parallel searches on the docket, parties, patent, and related proceedings.

Good foundation. Now let me pin down the docket specifics, the '561 patent's claims, corporate relationships, and any PTAB activity.

Case Overview — Furuno Electric Co. v. Raymarine UK Ltd., No. 3:13-cv-01687 (D. Or.)

The parties. This is operating-company-versus-operating-company competition litigation, not an NPE/PAE assertion. Plaintiff Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. ("FEC") is the Japanese marine-electronics manufacturer headquartered in Nishinomiya, Hyogo — one of the long-established suppliers of radar, sonar/fish finders, chartplotters, GPS and integrated bridge electronics, and it is the record owner of the asserted patents with the right to sue for past infringement. Co-plaintiff Furuno U.S.A., Inc. ("FUSA") is its Washington corporation and North American distribution arm in Camas, Washington, and the entity through which Furuno established the domestic-industry and U.S. commercial-activity story at the ITC (its NavNet 3D multifunction-display line was identified as practicing the patents). On the defense side, Raymarine UK Limited (Fareham, UK) designs and engineers marine electronics and software, and Raymarine, Inc. (Nashua, New Hampshire) designs, distributes and sells them in the United States; by 2014 the U.S. entity appears in court filings as "FLIR Maritime US, Inc. (f/k/a Raymarine, Inc.)," reflecting Raymarine's position inside FLIR Systems. (One secondary, non-authoritative commentary I found states that Garmin acquired Raymarine in 2010 — that appears to be an error; the primary filings show the FLIR affiliation, and Garmin was a separate, co-named defendant group. I would not repeat the Garmin-acquisition claim.) There is no university or individual inventor plaintiff here: the '561 lists Kenzo Kitayama as inventor with rights assigned to Furuno.

The technology and the patents. The accused technology is the defendants' marine (and, for Garmin, also aviation and on-road) navigation and display ecosystem: multifunction displays, radar systems, chartplotters, navigational aids, mapping systems and related software. For Raymarine specifically, contemporaneous reporting identifies the a-, c-, e- and gS-series marine display units as the accused '565 products, alongside its radar and chartplotter lines; the ITC investigation framed the accused category as "GPS devices, navigation and display systems, radar systems, navigational aids, mapping systems and related software." Although the case metadata identifies U.S. Patent No. 7,161,561 as the patent at issue, Furuno's 2013 Oregon campaign asserted four patents in parallel against Garmin, Navico and Raymarine: the '561 patent ("Display System," issued Jan. 9, 2007; App. No. 10/625,078, filed July 22, 2003, claiming priority to JP 10-28756 of Feb. 10, 1998) — a networked digital display system in which multiple display units can each selectively present one or more images from different

I'll research this case systematically, starting with the docket and complaint details.

Good start. Let me pull the full docket and check for the consolidation/stay motion and any IPR activity.

Bottom line

This was a short-lived, settlement-driven case. Furuno filed the Oregon action on 2013-09-23 as one leg of a coordinated three-front campaign (three parallel D. Or. suits + an ITC § 337 complaint filed the same day). Raymarine answered and counterclaimed for declaratory judgment on 2013-12-20, its UK affiliate was voluntarily dismissed days later, and the case never reached a Markman hearing, summary judgment, or trial. It ended in a confidential settlement that tracked — and was effectively superseded by — the settlement that terminated the parallel ITC investigation 337-TA-900 in August/September 2014. No PTAB IPR or PGR on the '561 patent was ever filed.

A caveat up front: PACER itself is paywalled and the free docket indexes (Plainsite, Docket Alarm, RPX) expose only partial entry lists. Docket-entry numbers below are drawn from the Plainsite index for No. 3:13-cv-01687; a couple of dates (noted) are inferences from adjacent entries rather than confirmed text.

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1. Filing and initial pleadings

Strategic texture. Furuno structured this as a "file everything at once" campaign: the district court complaints were filed the same day as the ITC complaint, expressly acknowledged in the ITC filing ("contemporaneously with the filing of the instant ITC complaint, it is also asserting the '565, '292, '561, and '447 patents against the Proposed Respondents in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon"). Dropping Raymarine UK Ltd. early was a routine jurisdictional/venue clean-up — it left only the New Hampshire-based Raymarine, Inc. as defendant, which is consistent with Furuno keeping the case in Oregon on the U.S. entity's commercial activity rather than defending an alien-defendant venue fight.

Note on patents. Your case metadata lists only U.S. Patent No. 7,161,561 ("Display System," issued 2007-01-09) for this docket. The ITC investigation and the Garmin/Navico Oregon complaints asserted four patents ('565, '292, '561, '447). Third-party litigation-tracking data for No. 3:13-cv-01687 specifically tags only '561 and '565 as the patents asserted against Raymarine in district court — i.e., the two patents Furuno had already litigated against Honeywell. I could not verify the district-court assertion set from a primary document, so treat the '561-only framing as authoritative per metadata but incomplete as a description of the campaign.

Prior-art/background. The '561 patent was not a stranger to litigation: Furuno asserted it in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-810 (against Honeywell), terminated March 2012 on settlement, and in a 2011 D. Or. suit against Honeywell. In the related Honeywell Int'l v. Furuno litigation in D. Minn., Furuno (joined by Raymarine, Inc. and Navico) obtained a stay pending ex parte reexamination of Honeywell's patents — showing the parties' familiarity with PTO-side invalidity channels in this technology space.

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2. Pre-trial motions of substance

• Motion to consolidate and stay (Dkt. 26, brief at Dkt. 27), filed 2013-12-19 by Raymarine. This is the one substantive defensive motion in the case. Raymarine sought to consolidate the three parallel Oregon actions (Furuno v. Garmin, No. 3:13-cv-01683; Furuno v. Navico; this case) before Judge Mosman and to stay them pending the ITC investigation. The natural statutory vehicle was 28 U.S.C. § 1659 (stay of a civil action involving the same parties and issues as a § 337 investigation, on timely request by a respondent). I could not retrieve the motion text or a ruling on it; given that the parties proceeded to a Rule 26(f) conference in January 2014 and that no claim construction or dispositive motion practice ever appears, the motion was either granted in part or mooted by the settlements. This is an unresolved docket question — flagging it rather than guessing.
• Motions to dismiss / transfer: none of substance. The only dismissal relief was the stipulated dismissal of Raymarine UK Ltd. (Dkt. 28).
• Summary judgment: none. The case never reached dispositive motion practice.
• Stay pending IPR: none, because no IPR existed to stay for.
• Fees: no § 285 motion or fee award appears in any source.

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3. Claim construction

Never reached. There is no Markman order, no joint claim construction statement, and no claim construction hearing in the docket for No. 3:13-cv-01687. This is unsurprising given the timeline: the case was filed in September 2013, the answer came in December 2013, Raymarine moved to consolidate/stay the same month, and the ITC track (with its statutory target date) was driving the schedule. Claim construction of the '561 patent was therefore never judicially construed in this action — which means the '561 patent's claim scope was never tested by a court against Raymarine's accused a-, c-, e-, and gS-series products.

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4. Discovery milestones of strategic significance

I'll research the docket and counsel of record for the plaintiffs in this case.

Let me pull the docket records for the case.

Counsel of Record — Plaintiffs Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. and Furuno U.S.A., Inc.

Bottom line: Plaintiffs were represented by Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP as national/lead counsel, with a team drawn from Quinn Emanuel's Los Angeles and Tokyo offices, all admitted pro hac vice in the District of Oregon in early October 2013. The Oregon docket entries I could retrieve confirm the pro hac vice admissions but do not clearly identify the Oregon local counsel of record — I flag that gap below rather than guess.

Lead / national counsel: Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP

Corroboration of the firm relationship: Quinn Emanuel's own patent litigation practice description expressly lists Furuno Electric Co., Ltd., et al. v. Raymarine (D. Or. 2014) among its matters. Furuno's pleadings in the companion D. Or./ITC filings were signed by the same Quinn Emanuel team, captioned "Of Attorneys for Plaintiff, FURUNO ELECTRIC CO., LTD."

Local counsel (Oregon)

• Not confirmed. The District of Oregon requires a local attorney, and the docket shows pro hac vice motions filed on plaintiffs' behalf, which implies sponsoring local counsel — but the docket excerpts I could retrieve (Plainsite docket index; Justia/Plainsite party records) do not name plaintiffs' Oregon local counsel of record.
• One name that surfaces in connection with Furuno's Oregon litigation is Stephen J. Joncus, shown by Justia as counsel of record for the Furuno plaintiffs in the follow-on case Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. v. Raymarine, Inc., No. 3:14-cv-00996 (D. Or., filed 6/20/2014, Judge Michael H. Simon). That is a separate, later case file, so I would not state that he was on the 3:13-cv-01687 docket without confirming the entry directly on PACER.

A caution on names that appear on this docket

The Plainsite docket index for 3:13-cv-01687 also lists pro hac vice motions for William A. Brewer III, Farooq A. Tayab, and Michael J. Collins (Bickel & Brewer, Dallas). Those attorneys appear on the Raymarine side in the parallel Massachusetts action (Raymarine Belgium BVBA v. Furuno Electric Co., D. Mass. No. 1:14-cv-12415, where local counsel was John D. Stuebing of Tarlow, Breed, Hart & Rodgers, Boston). I therefore do not attribute them to plaintiffs; they are most likely part of the Raymarine defense team admitted in Oregon.

Verification status

• Well sourced: Quinn Emanuel's role for Furuno (firm practice description; signed pleadings); the pro hac vice admissions of Barza, Alexander, Goldstein, Weinstein and Hill for "Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. and Furuno U.S.A., Inc." (docket orders signed 10/3/2013 by Mag. J. Acosta, before reassignment to Judge Michael W. Mosman).
• Not verified / open items: Oregon local counsel of record; whether any attorney later substituted in or out before the settlement and the stipulated dismissal of Raymarine UK Ltd.; whether any Furuno in-house counsel entered an appearance. No sealed filings were identified, and I did not find a PACER docket sheet image that would let me cite specific document numbers for each appearance — treat the Dkt. numbers as unconfirmed.

Note also that although the case metadata lists only the '561 patent, the D. Or. complaint filed 9/23/2013 asserted the '565 and '561 patents against Raymarine (with '292 and '447 asserted against the co-defendants), consistent with Furuno's simultaneous ITC complaint filed the same day.

Suggested next steps for definitive confirmation: pull the PACER docket sheet for 3:13-cv-01687 (D. Or.) and check entries 1–30 for the complaint caption block, the pro hac vice applications (which name the sponsoring local attorney), and the notice of appearance by Oregon counsel.

I'll research the docket and counsel of record for the Raymarine defendants.

Let me dig into the docket details and confirm each attorney's role.

Let me pull the docket sheets directly.

Counsel of Record — Defendants Raymarine UK Ltd. and Raymarine, Inc., No. 3:13-cv-01687 (D. Or.)

Bottom line: The docket in 3:13-cv-01687 shows a two-tier defense team: Susan Marmaduke of Tonkon Torp (Portland) as Oregon/local counsel of record, and a Bickel & Brewer (Dallas) national trial team admitted pro hac vice — William A. Brewer III (lead), with Michael J. Collins, Stephanie L. Gase, and Farooq A. Tayab.

Table of appearances

Docket grounding

• Dkt. 22–25 (filed 12/16/2013): Motions for leave to appear pro hac vice for Tayab, Gase, Brewer, and Collins; $100 fees paid (agency tracking nos. 0979-3519674, -3519683, -3519688); orders granting special admission signed 12/21/2013 by Judge Michael W. Mosman — each order expressly names "Raymarine UK Limited and Raymarine, Inc."
• Dkt. 18, 20: Raymarine's unopposed extensions (answer deadline, Rule 26(f) conference) — defended by the Marmaduke + Brewer team.
• Dkt. 28 (12/19/2013): Stipulated motion to dismiss Raymarine UK Ltd. without prejudice — so after December 2013 the active defendant was Raymarine, Inc. only.
• Answer (12/20/2013): Filed by Susan Marmaduke on behalf of Raymarine, Inc. only (docket text modified to reflect that), pleading noninfringement, invalidity, and unenforceability counterclaims.
• Motion to consolidate and stay (filed with supporting brief, late Dec. 2013) — Raymarine sought to consolidate with the contemporaneous Garmin/Navico Oregon actions and stay pending the ITC § 337 investigation.

Source: Plainsite docket compilation for Furuno Electric Co., Ltd. et al v. Raymarine UK Limited et al, No. 3:13-cv-01687 (D. Or.) — https://www.plainsite.law/courts/oregon-district-court/furuno-electric-co-ltd-et-al-v-raymarine-uk-limited-et-al/2xl3keegm/

Caveats and open items

• No in-house counsel is identified in the accessible docket text. Raymarine was a FLIR Systems subsidiary at the time; any in-house counsel would appear on the Rule 26(f) report or corporate disclosure statement (Dkt. filed 12/20/2013), which I could not retrieve. Do not assume an in-house appearance.
• Sealed/omitted material: The docket excerpts available to me do not include the parties' Rule 26(f) report, protective order, or the settlement papers. Any additional appearances (or withdrawals) after the pro hac vice orders may exist; I could not confirm whether Collins, Gase, or Tayab formally withdrew before settlement.
• Marmaduke's firm: I am confident of her Portland practice and her role as the signing Oregon counsel here, but the specific Tonkon Torp affiliation is drawn from general firm/bar records rather than a filing I could verify in this docket — treat as high-confidence, not docket-verified.
• Related matters: Raymarine's counsel team also appears in Raymarine Belgium BVBA v. Furuno Electric Co., Ltd., No. 1:14-cv-12415 (D. Mass.), where John D. Stuebing (Tarlow, Breed, Hart & Rodgers, Boston) served as local counsel with Brewer and Tayab. That is a separate case and Stuebing is not counsel of record in 3:13-cv-01687. A second Oregon suit, Furuno v. Raymarine, Inc., No. 3:14-cv-00996 (D. Or., Judge Michael H. Simon, filed 6/20/2014), exists; I did not confirm its defense appearances.
• Outcome: Per the case metadata, the action terminated by settlement (with the parallel ITC investigation settled Aug.–Sept. 2014); no judgment or claim-construction ruling on the '561 patent issued in this docket that I could locate.