Key Points

• Hatch-Waxman discovery deadlines — Court denies motion to extend RFA service deadline for lack of good cause under FRCP 16; 30-month stay drives restrictive scheduling orders
• Scheduling order modification denied — “Changed circumstances” not established where defense arguments merely repeated objections raised at initial scheduling conference
• Supplemental discovery carve-out preserved — Court leaves door open for additional RFAs upon showing of good cause after substantial completion of document production

A federal magistrate judge’s recent refusal to extend a deadline to serve requests for admission underscores the extent to which courts strive to keep Hatch-Waxman litigation on track to conclude within the statutory 30-month stay window.

Changes to an ordered case schedule generally must meet the “good cause” standard of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 16. Here, the defense request largely reiterated concerns raised at the initial scheduling conference, which the Court found insufficient to establish “changed circumstances” supporting good cause in the context of Hatch-Waxman litigation.

Case Schedule Established

Following proposed consolidation of eight Hatch-Waxman litigation proceedings against various defendants, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael A. Hammer held a scheduling conference in December 2025 to establish a consolidated case schedule. The Court specifically addressed the need for a deadline to serve initial written discovery requests, noting past experiences without a deadline where “somebody’s still serving written discovery six months from now. Which poses all sorts of other problems.”

Indeed, the DNJ’s form Joint Discovery Plan has such a deadline for the very purpose of ensuring parties begin engaging in the written discovery process early in the case, so that any issues can be raised and resolved without delaying the case.

The Court underscored at the initial conference that it was seeking to avoid belated service of “entirely new sets of requests to produce and interrogatories on entirely different subjects” because that creates “all sorts of case management issues [] and keeps us all awake at night vis-à-vis that [30-month stay] deadline.”

To allay concerns from the defendants about the early deadline, the Court emphasized it was “not talking about follow-up” but initial discovery requests. The Court noted “if there are deficiency issues or, obviously, some unforeseen change of events where supplementation is appropriate, I expect the parties to resolve that. And if you can’t, I'm going to be extremely reasonable; certainly not hold you to the written discovery service date.” The Court further emphasized that “obviously, if there’s good cause even later to serve written discovery under Rule 16 … you can do so either by consent of the parties or leave of the Court.”

On Dec. 18, 2025, the Court set a deadline for written discovery requests (including interrogatories, requests for production, and requests for admission) to be served in mid-March 2026. This deadline was imposed even after considering, under the proposed scheduling order, plaintiff’s responses to invalidity contentions would not be due until mid-May 2026.

Although defendants identified this potential issue during the initial conference, the Court noted that any discovery dispute necessitating the service of additional requests for admission or other written discovery raised by plaintiff’s responses to invalidity contentions “would be a fair Rule 16 good cause argument once the issue’s actually joined and there’s a little more clarity” regarding the potential discovery dispute.

Defendants’ Request to Modify Deadline

Several months later, in March 2026, defendants requested an extension of the deadline to serve RFAs for one year — from March 2026 to March 2027 — or, alternatively, to 45 days after plaintiff’s service of responsive contentions on validity.

Plaintiff opposed, asserting that “nothing has changed since the scheduling conference” and that the Court had already rejected this argument at the December 2025 scheduling conference. The Court denied defendants’ request as “no new circumstances have been brought to light that would warrant a modification to the schedule.”

In an extended footnote, the Court emphasized that it had put the parties on notice back in December 2025 that in a Hatch-Waxman case, it “tends to set restrictive deadlines because the Court and the parties are racing against a 30-month stay deadline.” The Court credited plaintiff’s assertion that “nothing has changed” since the discovery conference sufficient to satisfy the “good cause” standard required to modify the scheduling order.

The Court emphasized that, in considering defendants’ request, it “does not have the benefit of looking at Defendants’ proposed deadline in a vacuum. Instead, the Court must consider that after RFAs are served, Plaintiff will need to respond. That response could include objections which may engender disputes brought to the Court. Beyond that there will be depositions, expert reports, and expert discovery.”

The Court reiterated its intention that “the parties and the Court are not caught flat-footed at the eleventh hour” by the 30-month stay.

The Court clarified that, as previously noted at the scheduling conference, “if after the substantial completion of document production Defendants believe they require some supplemental RFAs, they will meet and confer with Plaintiff,” leaving open the possibility of establishing good cause to modify the service deadline for additional RFAs.

Takeaway

The ruling is a timely reminder that judges in the DNJ are mindful of the statutory deadlines involved in Hatch-Waxman litigation and will craft, and attempt to stick to, scheduling orders so that a decision can be issued before the 30-month stay expires. Thus, absent a specific showing of good cause, judges in the DNJ may rigidly apply case deadlines set early in these types of proceedings.

Paul W. Kalish and Jonathan J. Madara are members of the IP Litigation team in Fox Rothschild’s Princeton, NJ office and write about patent litigation decisions in the District of New Jersey. Contact Paul at pkalish@foxrothschild.com or 609.895.6751 and Jonathan at jmadara@foxrothschild.com or 609.844.7428.

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