IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
FISCALNOTE, INC.,
Plaintiff,
V.
DANIEL GERMAIN, et al.,
Defendants
Case No.: l:20-cv-1579

Dismissed,with prejudice

"Plaintiff, FiscalNote, Inc. ("FiscalNote") and Defendants, Daniel Germain and Germain Consulting, LLC ("Germain Consulting"), by their undersigned counsel, pursuant to Rule 41(a)(l )(A)(ii) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, hereby stipulate to the dismissal of all claims asserted in this action, including but not limited to the claims asserted in FiscalNote's Complaint filed December 22, 2020, with prejudice, each party to bear his or its own costs and expenses, including attorney's fees."

Joint  Stipulation of DismissalComplaintAnswer

"Baseless allegations...Notice to withdraw its baseless Complaint"

"Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11(b)... it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation."

"Please be advised that, should you and your client continue to prosecute this baseless case, we reserve all rights to seek sanctions, costs, and attorneys’ fees pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11, 28 U.S.C. § 1927, and all other applicable remedies."

2021.06.02 Letter to S. Gilbert and J. Blum re FiscalNote v. Germain

"Plaintiff Accuses Mr. Germain of All Sorts of Wrongdoing, and Mr. Germain Spends the Next Year Explaining to Plaintiff That He Did Nothing Wrong."

"On January 31, 2020, after it received a copy of Mr. Germain’s marketing emails (see Ex. A) from one of its customers, Plaintiff (through counsel) sent Mr. Germain a cease-and-desist letter, claiming that his marketing campaign was 'defamatory, constitutes tortious interference and is actionable.' "

"The following month, in February 2020, Plaintiff sent Mr. Germain two more threatening letters, now accusing Mr. Germain of having misappropriated its trade secrets by downloading thousands of files from Plaintiff’s file storage drives—the same allegations that Plaintiff would later make in its Complaint. See id at 2-4."

"Between February and November of 2020, Mr. Germain tried to avoid this litigation by providing detailed disclosures and explanations of what he actually did and did not do, why Plaintiff’s allegations were inaccurate, and how Plaintiff could independently verify his explanations."

Cease & Deist LettersJune 5 2020 Letter to FN with offer to search devicesDEFENDANT RESPONSE IN OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFF FISCALNOTE, INC.’S MOTION TO EXTEND EXPERT DISCOVERY

FiscalNote misses deadline for expert witnesses by 17 days and requests extension.  

From DEFENDANTS DANIEL GERMAIN AND GERMAIN CONSULTING, LLC’S RESPONSE IN OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFF FISCALNOTE, INC.’S MOTION TO EXTEND EXPERT DISCOVERY

"On December 22, 2020, Plaintiff filed its Complaint. In a final attempt to avoid an expensive litigation that he could ill-afford, Mr. Germain agreed to a three-month “stay” of this case7 during which Mr. Germain voluntarily ran (1) 46 broad search queries proposed by Plaintiff and (2) the file names of every single one of the several thousand documents Plaintiff alleged Mr. Germain misappropriated across every electronic device, email account, and system log in his custody and control—all in an attempt to show Plaintiff he had done nothing wrong or in any way inappropriate. See, e.g., Exhibit F (the parties’ agreed-upon search terms)."

Exhibit F - Search TermsDEFENDANT RESPONSE IN OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFF FISCALNOTE, INC.’S MOTION TO EXTEND EXPERT DISCOVERY

"[T]ransparent ploy to drive up the costs of this litigation "

"[P]ut the squeeze on its unemployed former employee to get the settlement it wanted"

"Plaintiff’s sudden claim to need multiple experts and its belated motion are nothing more than a transparent ploy to drive up the costs of this litigation and force Mr. Germain—an unemployed individual—into accepting a settlement on Plaintiff’s terms. "

"...There is every reason to believe that Plaintiff reasonably decided not to invest in any experts in a case that it offered to completely walk away from two weeks ago—until it decided it needed to put the squeeze on its unemployed former employee to get the settlement it wanted."

Defendants ANSWER to ComplaintCeases & Desist LettersDEFENDANT RESPONSE IN OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFF FISCALNOTE, INC.’S MOTION TO EXTEND EXPERT DISCOVERY

"Defendants deny Plaintiff’s paranoid allegations that they 'fed misleading and outdated documents and information to the media'.          

Washington Business Journal article

"Around the same time as Germain’s marketing campaign was underway, the Washington Business Journal (“WBJ”) published an article about FiscalNote, which painted FiscalNote in a false and defamatory light. It depicted FiscalNote as a company struggling to retain high-profile clients. In support for its statements, WBJ quoted from internal retention documents obtained by the Washington Business Journal.”

"Based on the content of the article, the information provided to WBJ included old and stale documents and information, selectively chosen and taken out of context, in order to create a false and misleading impression of the state of FiscalNote’s customer relationships."

"FiscalNote has traced certain of the information published by WBJ to a specific confidential, internal FiscalNote document. Germain downloaded the document prior to publication of the article."

"Upon information and belief, Germain also told WBJ that FiscalNote is no longer investing in the Engage product and fails to support its clients using the platform."

DEFENDANT RESPONSE IN OPPOSITION TO PLAINTIFF FISCALNOTE, INC.’S MOTION TO EXTEND EXPERT DISCOVERY

FiscalNote, Inc. v. Germain et al

Timeline

2018 - 2021

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LinkLink

FISCALNOTE, INC., v. QUORUM ANALYTICS, INC., ( C.A. No. 20-1736-LPS)

DISMISSED

"FiscalNote is, and will remain, unable to state a claim for patent infringement on which relief could be granted" " FiscalNote has said ... at times .... that each of these patents is directed to improvements in computer technology, but in my view, that is incorrect. FiscalNote has identified nothing in either patent to support its contention and the Court cannot find support for it in these patents, even recognizing that these are lengthy patents."

"At Wilmington, this 2nd day of July 2021: WHEREAS, Defendants (Quorum) in the above-listed cases filed Rule 12 motions to dispose of patent infringement claims on the bases that certain patent claims are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101, because they are allegedly directed to patent ineligible subject matter" "Defendant's Rule 12 motion (C.A. No. 20-1736 D.I. 10) is GRANTED"

In the checklist letter, FiscalNote identified the term "scraped from the Internet" as being in dispute and proposes that it be construed as "collecting data from the Internet with the aid of a computer." From this, it follows, in FiscalNote's view, that the inventions are plainly not a series of mental steps and cannot be performed manually by a human[47] and FiscalNote suggests that this would  therefore impact the results of the 101 analysis.  

In the Court's view, FiscalNote waived its opportunity to argue that claim construction is necessary before the Court can resolve the 101 motion by not providing the Court, in its answering brief, a proposed construction and at least some explanation as to what difference adoption of that proposed construction would make. FiscalNote does a little bit better in its checklist letter, but
that also is too late.

Even adopting FiscalNote' s new proposed construction still leaves us with nothing more than patent claims that involve normal computer operations. 

Additionally, what I have referred to today as the mental process test provides an additional clue that FiscalNote's claims are directed to an abstract idea. I incorporate here by reference all my prior discussions of the continuing usefulness of the mental process test. Applying that test here, all of what the claims of the '002 and '092 patents cover could be practiced by, and as is explained in the specification, have long been practiced by, humans without computers. 

US District Court for the District of Delaware Memorandum Order