United States Ninth Circuit

The district court's dismissal of an action in which plaintiff-purchasers of SD digital memory cards alleged that defendants violated federal and state antitrust laws by conspiring to fix the price for SD cards and engaging in improper practices with respect to the licensing of their patents to other manufacturers of SD cards, is reversed and remanded, where: 1) because the plaintiffs only sought injunctive relief under section 16 of the Clayton Act, their federal antitrust claim was subject to the equitable doctrine of laches and not the four-year statute of limitations in section 4B of the Clayton Act; 2) plaintiffs' allegations in their first amended complaint were sufficient to establish that laches was not a bar to their federal antitrust claim; and 3) the district court also erred in dismissing plaintiffs' state law claims.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/14/2014
• Published 05/14/2014

Judges

• PAEZ

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel