The online retailer Newegg Inc. has built up a reputation for crusading against so-called non-practicing entities—often disparaged as patent trolls. But Newegg may have overreached when it picked a discovery fight with NPE pioneer Erich Spangenberg, earning itself a rebuke this week from an East Texas federal judge.

In the latest development in the Chapter 11 of WaMu's parent, a judge refused to appoint an examiner but told Susman Godfrey it can probe the estate's deal with JPMorgan Chase. That doesn't bode well for a settlement--and a plan of reorganization--that's already imperiled.