By Memorandum Order entered by The Honorable Sue L. Robinson in Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc. v. West-Ward Pharmaceutical Corp., Civil Action No. 14-1268-SLR (D.Del., December 14, 2016), the Court granted plaintiff Takeda Pharmaceuticals U.S.A., Inc.'s motion filed pursuant to Rules 59(e) and 15(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure seeking to (1) reopen the judgment of dismissal of the action previously entered under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim and (2) to amend the complaint.
In evaluating Takeda's motion, the Court recognized that, "[w]hen a plaintiff files a Rule 59(e) motion accompanied by a Rule 15(a) motion after the dismissal of a complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), 'the appropriate manner to dispose of th[e] issue is to consider the motions together and determine what outcome is permitted by consideration of the Rule 15(a) factors.'" Id. at *1-2 (quoting Burtch v. Milberg Factors, Inc., 662 F.3d 212, 231 (3d Cir. 2011)). Under Rule 15(a), leave to amend a complaint is freely granted in the absence of undue delay, bad faith, dilatory motive, unfair prejudice, or futility of amendment. Id. at *2.
In applying the applicable standard, the Court found that Takeda's motion was timely, and that there was no evidence of bad faith or dilatory motive. Id. at *4. The Court also explained that, although the proposed second amended complaint1 did not contain all of the who, what, when and where's of the communications identified therein for Takeda's asserted claim against Hikma for induced infringement, given the Third Circuit's standard for reviewing the sufficiency of a complaint that rests upon "information and belief" and given that Hikma would be the actual source of the requisite factual information, the proposed second amended complaint did contain sufficiently detailed allegations to plausibly give rise to a claim for inducement of patent infringement and did give Hikma fair notice of such claim. Id. at *5. Thus, the Court found that amendment of the complaint was not futile. Id. Lastly, because the action had not progressed past the initial pleading, the Court found that there was no undue prejudice to Hikma. Id. Therefore, the Court granted Takeda's motion.
A copy of the Memorandum Order is attached.
Footnote
[1] In addition to having previously dismissed Takeda's original complaint, the Court had previously dismissed Takeda's first amended complaint after concluding, among other things, that Takeda's first amended complaint failed to satisfy the pleading standard found in Twombly and Iqbal – i.e., Takeda had failed to provide adequate factual allegations to state a plausible claim for induced infringement. Id. at *3.
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