US District Court allows for immediate appeal of summary judgment rulings

The trial date of November 4, 2008, on Bally’s antitrust counterclaims against IGT has been vacated. "The Court recognized it would be fundamentally unfair to make IGT defend the antitrust counterclaims following the Court’s issuance of what it called ’just a tentative ruling... tentative because it’s from me and not from the appellate court.’ Therefore, the Court decided to stay the proceedings and vacate the trial date," said Dave Johnson, IGT’s Executive VP and General Counsel.

The IGT Wheel/Bally iView case involves patents covering bonus wheel gaming machines and certain features of player tracking systems. In the summary judgment rulings issued on October 16, 2008, certain of IGT’s patents had been found invalid and/or not infringed. These rulings and an earlier order relating to interpretation of terms and phrases defining the inventions are the matters being certified for an immediate appeal by IGT.

"Judge Jones indicated that a review of his decisions by a specialized patent court in Washington, D.C., the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, ’will help resolve the dispute,’ and that the parties ’need a final ruling so that [they] can conclude the trial and litigation.’ The Federal Circuit will review these recent decisions and the earlier Markman ruling de novo or as if they were being presented for the first time," said Johnson. "IGT looks forward to this appeal and remains very confident in its case."