Opinion
No. 02 C 5197
February 25, 2003
OPINION
On September 6, 2002, plaintiffs filed a motion for a preliminary injunction. Shortly after this, the parties entered into a so-called "standstill agreement," pursuant to which Tillotson agreed not to manufacture and/or purchase certain products believed by plaintiffs to infringe upon their patents until the injunction relief issue was resolved. Although this issue has not yet been resolved, Tillotson now moves for entry of an order lifting the standstill agreement. Tillotson claims that it thought the petition for injunctive relief would have be resolved by now and that operating under the standstill agreement will cause significant harm.
The initial issue here is Tillotson's motivation for entering the agreement and whether this Court has indeed failed to meet its expectations. Whereas Tillotson claims that it entered the agreement because it believed the petition for injunction relief would have been resolved by now, plaintiffs claim that Tillotson entered the agreement because it wanted more time to address the motion and to request a stay of these proceedings. The plaintiffs' version is accurate. With the standstill agreement in place, the plaintiffs agreed to postpone the preliminary injunction motion. In addition, since the entering of the agreement, Tillotson has unsuccessfully sought to stay these proceedings due to its bankruptcy proceedings in New Hampshire. More important, however, is the parties' proposed expedited discovery plan, agreed to by Tillotson, postponing resolution of the preliminary injunction motion until at least April 21, 2003. Based on these observations, it is incomprehensible that Tillotson expected quick resolution and may thus be entitled to a lifting of the agreement based on unmet expectations. As to Tillotson's claim that the standstill agreement will cause significant harm, I note that Tillotson has not yet satisfied my January 21, 2003 request for specific outstanding orders that need to be filled. It has neither produced any outstanding orders nor described the current orders that it intends to fill over the next couple of weeks. As such, I have no basis for revisiting my possible inclination to allow Tillotson to fill specific orders a few weeks at a time
For the reasons above, Tillotson's Motion to Lift Standstill Agreement is DENIED, and the parties are instructed to schedule a preliminary injunction hearing upon completion of the briefing schedule.