Emerson Electric Co. v. Davoil, Inc. D/B/A Quorum International and the Fan Connection D/B/A Dan's Fan City

FRIEDMAN, Senior Circuit Judge.

The question is whether a federal district court in a patent infringement suit may order the patentee to file, in a patent reexamination proceeding in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, papers prepared by the alleged infringer in addition to the patentee’s own submission. We conclude that the district court does not have that power and therefore we reverse the portion of the district court’s order that so requires.

I

The appellant, the patentee Emerson Electric Co. (Emerson), brought a patent infringement suit against two defendants (collectively “Quorum”) in…