Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Plaintiffs allege infringement of three Canadian patents related to digital television systems by multiple telecommunications and media defendants.

• Defendants counterclaim for invalidity of the patents and seek leave to file reply expert reports addressing new arguments in plaintiffs' responding evidence.

• Central legal question involves the admissibility and proper scope of reply expert evidence under Canadian Federal Court jurisprudence.

• The Court assessed whether the reply reports presented new, unanticipated issues or merely reiterated original positions or expressed disagreement.

• Some portions of reply reports were permitted where they addressed genuinely new concepts not previously discussed in the experts’ original reports.

• Remaining portions of the reports were excluded for being improper replies that could be addressed during cross-examination at trial.

Facts and Outcome of the Case

Background and Parties

This case involves a patent infringement dispute initiated by Adeia Guides Inc. and Adeia Media Holdings LLC (formerly Rovi Guides, Inc. and TiVo LLC) against major telecommunications and media companies, including BCE Inc., Bell Canada, Bell Media Inc., and others such as Ericsson Canada and MK Mediatech. The lawsuit centers on allegations that the defendants infringed three Canadian patents: No. 2,753,243 (the "243 Patent"), No. 2,952,467 (the "467 Patent"), and No. 2,691,719 (the "719 Patent"). These patents relate to systems and methods for content delivery, transcoding, and media mirroring within digital television infrastructure.

The plaintiffs claim that services such as Fibe TV, Crave TV, and the Mediaroom platform violated their patented technologies. The defendants deny these claims and have filed a counterclaim seeking to invalidate the patents on multiple grounds. The litigation has progressed to a phase involving complex expert evidence on both infringement and validity.

The Motion Before the Court

The immediate issue before the Federal Court was whether the defendants could file reply expert evidence in response to the plaintiffs’ earlier responding expert reports. The defendants sought to introduce three reply reports—addressing the patents separately—which they argued were necessary to counter new, unanticipated opinions and alleged mischaracterizations made by the plaintiffs' experts.

The plaintiffs opposed this request, arguing that the proposed replies amounted to improper rebuttal, including repetition of prior points, bolstering of original positions, and improper attempts to have the "last word" in the expert evidence exchange.

Legal Framework Applied

Justice Fuhrer reviewed the admissibility of reply expert evidence in light of established Federal Court jurisprudence. Key principles include:

• Reply evidence must address genuinely new or unexpected issues.

• It must not simply confirm prior evidence, express disagreement, or introduce material that could have been raised earlier.

• Admissibility also considers whether the evidence helps the court understand complex scientific matters, whether it would cause prejudice, and whether it could have been discovered with due diligence.

Citing cases such as Janssen v Teva, Angelcare v Munchkin, and Akebia v Fibrogen, the Court reinforced the standard that proper replies must serve the interest of justice and not disrupt the fairness of proceedings.

Outcome and Reasoning

Justice Fuhrer conducted a detailed, section-by-section review of the three proposed reply reports:

• Nock 243 Reply Report: Certain sections were admitted where they addressed new concepts such as altered definitions of the skilled person or unanticipated claim constructions. Sections deemed to be mere disagreements were excluded.

• Robinson 467 Reply Report: Only two sections were permitted, involving alleged inconsistencies in expert interpretations across infringement and invalidity contexts. Other parts were found to be repetitive or argumentative.

• Robinson 719 Reply Report: Similar to the other reports, only portions dealing with genuinely new elements (e.g., timestamps in mirroring) or clarifying mischaracterizations were accepted.

The Court concluded that many of the defendants’ assertions amounted to improper rebuttal and were best handled through cross-examination. Nevertheless, it acknowledged the complexity of the subject matter and allowed limited portions of the reply reports.

Conclusion and Costs

The defendants' motion was granted in part. Each report was trimmed to exclude sections that did not meet the legal threshold for proper reply evidence. The Court noted it retains discretion to revisit these rulings during trial if circumstances change. Costs of the motion were left to be determined in the overall outcome of the case, as agreed by the parties.