The Compak Cos., LLC v. Johnson, No 03 C 7427 & 08 C 4665, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Jun. 1, 2009) (Grady, J.).
Judge Grady accepted the bankruptcy court’s recommendations, with some modifications, and granted defendants’ motion to dismiss plaintiff The Compak Companies’ (“TCC”) claims for legal title to the patents in suit and for infringement of those patents, all related to a container for holding wine and communion wafers for religious services. BMJ Partners purchased the assets of Compak Corp. (“Compak”) in a bankruptcy sale. BMJ assigned the assets to TCC. TCC alleged that Compak wrongly licensed the patents in suit to DuoTech Holdings. DuoTech was identified in the bankruptcy proceeding as a party to an executory contract identified as a patent license. The Court noted that the bankruptcy court had a right to extinguish DuoTech’s license and transfer Compak’s assets free of the license, so long as DuoTech was given notice of the sale. But DuoTech was not provided notice of the sale, as required by the bankruptcy law. TCC argued that DuoTech had sufficient notice because various people related to DuoTech received notice in other capacities. But the Court held that DuoTech’s President was served notice of the bankruptcy filing not the sale and the other individuals were not proven to have a sufficient relationship to DuoTech to create notice. As a result, DuoTech did not have sufficient notice and the license was, therefore, not terminated by the bankruptcy sale.