No. The government is the moving party. If the moving party drops it, the court drops it.
I'm pretty sure NewEgg was recently taken to court by a patent troll, and after the troll realized that NewEgg fights instead of paying, they backed off. Then NewEgg sued to get a judgement that would guarantee this couldn't happen to them again.
I know this is a different venue and there are topical differences. But are you absolutely certain that there is no counter-action Apple (or any company, for that matter) can pursue to get a judgment about this?
Newegg's actions were different, in that the patent owner's dropping the suit didn't actually resolve the question of infringement. It was still out there, and the patent owner could re-file suit at any point in the future. Between now and then, if Newegg were in fact infringing, monetary damages would continue to pile up. So the uncertainty can have a pretty significant impact on business decisions and impair their ability to operate. A request for declaratory judgment seeks to resolve that uncertainty so that both parties can get back to normal.
For Newegg, the request accomplishes a few things. It lets them clear the air, indirectly help solve the resulting from the remaining suits against retailers selling Rosewill products, and it's the legal equivalent of spiking the football and giving the troll a swift kick in the nuts. Minero Digital now gets to defend itself in a Delaware court, absent all of the little advantages of East Texas. It's a rather bad break for them.
Honestly, if I were a patent troll, I'd be scared shitless to send a letter to someone like Newegg. With their stance on patent suits, they're exactly the sort of company that would preemptively file a request for declaratory judgment after they were contacted.
While nuisance suits from private actors can totally be ruinous, the potential for harm from government actors is so much greater.
(1) See middle of page 5 here: http://www.nuff.ox.ac.uk/users/klemperer/WhyEveryEconomist.p... Where he debunks Dan Quayle's court reform ideas
That's not at all a similar question. We're talking about staking the following strategy through the heart:
* Some part of USGov makes an overreaching legal demand using a really shaky (perhaps unsupportable) legal argument.
* They get a magistrate to issue an order in an "emergency" ex parte hearing
Now either:
* USGov presents that court order to a small and/or legally clueless business who says: "This is a court order! I have to comply with it, else I get in trouble!". USGov gets what they wanted and gets to bully another unwary victim with the same bullshit tactic
or
* USGov presents that court order to a larger and/or legally savvy business who examines it and says: "No. This is bullshit."
* That company goes to the court and tells the court why the order is bullshit
* The court quietly mumbles: "USGov... they're right, looks like it's bullshit."
* USGov goes: "Oops! We really didn't need that anyway!", withdraws the request, and retries it at a later day with a less savvy victim
So, completely different situations.
If USGov had to keep pushing such cases through if the defendant demanded that they be pushed through, what you'd get is what we get when Newegg fights patent trolls: evisceration of bullies, thugs, and the chicanery that permits them to operate.