Apple Inc. v. Motorola, Inc.
757 F.3d 1286
| Fed. Cir. | 2014Background
- Apple sued Motorola for infringement of multiple patents; Motorola counterclaimed; case transferred to N.D. Ill.; district court performed claim construction and excluded most damages expert evidence, then granted summary judgment that neither party was entitled to damages or injunctions.
- Six patents remained on appeal: Apple’s U.S. Patent Nos. 7,479,949; 6,343,263; 5,946,647; and Motorola’s U.S. Patent Nos. 6,359,898; 6,175,559; 5,319,712.
- Key district-court actions under review: claim constructions (notably Apple’s “heuristic” terms in the ’949 patent), Daubert exclusions of damages experts, summary judgment of noninfringement for certain claims, and grants of no-damages/no-injunction relief.
- Federal Circuit majority reversed the district court’s means-plus-function construction of the ’949 patent heuristics, reversed many Daubert exclusions (allowing most damages testimony), vacated summary judgments on damages and Apple’s injunction request (as to the ’949 claims), but affirmed noninfringement rulings for Motorola’s ’559 and ’712 patents and affirmed no-injunction for Motorola’s FRAND-committed ’898 patent.
- Two judges dissented in part: Chief Judge Rader would have reversed the denial of Motorola’s injunction (contending factual issues about Apple as an unwilling licensee existed); Judge Prost dissented on the '949 claim construction (would have treated heuristics as means-plus-function).
Issues
| Issue | Plaintiff's Argument (Apple) | Defendant's Argument (Motorola) | Held |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whether "heuristic" claim terms in the '949 patent are means-plus-function (§112 ¶6) / definite | "Heuristic" connotes structure (rules/operations); presumption against means-plus deleted absent "means" should stand; claims + spec provide operation/inputs/outputs so definite | "Heuristic" is indefinite or effectively a means-plus-function term; requires limiting to corresponding structure (district court: next-item = right-side tap) | Reversed district court: "heuristic" construed as having sufficiently definite structure; not §112 ¶6; summary judgment of noninfringement based on prior construction vacated (Judge Prost dissented) |
| Construction of Apple’s '647 patent terms ("analyzer server" and "linking actions to detected structures") | "Analyzer server" may be a program routine not necessarily separate; "linking" means associating actions | Motorola: "analyzer server" implies client-server separation; "linking" requires a specified connection (pointers) | Affirmed district court: "analyzer server" = server routine separate from client; "linking" = creating a specified connection (at least one subroutine) |
| Construction of Apple’s '263 patent (does "realtime API" itself operate in realtime?) | API must function in realtime | API need only facilitate realtime interaction between subsystems | Affirmed district court: API allows realtime interaction but need not itself satisfy realtime timing constraints |
| Construction of Motorola’s '559 patent method-step order (must forming inner/outer codes precede multiplication?) | Steps need not be strictly sequential | Claim language + spec indicate full sequences are formed then multiplied ("the" codes) | Affirmed district court: steps construed sequentially; summary judgment of noninfringement affirmed |
| Construction of Motorola’s '712 patent (is TOSN transmitted?) | TOSN not transmitted | Accused products transmit counterpart; dispute | Affirmed district court: TOSN never transmitted per spec and Motorola’s prosecution statements; summary judgment of noninfringement affirmed |
| Admissibility of damages expert testimony (Daubert/Rule 702/703) | Apple: damages experts used reliable methods (benchmarks, apportionment, design-around costs); reliance on party technical experts permissible | Motorola: many opinions unreliable, untied to claims, relied on biased/unsupported inputs (Donohoe) | Court reverses most exclusions: Napper (Apple) admissible for ’949 and ’263; Mulhern (Motorola) mostly admissible except portions relying on Donohoe’s unsupported 40–50% portfolio allocation; district court erred by substituting its valuation for methodology review |
| Summary judgment of no damages and no injunctions | Apple: at least some admissible damages evidence remains for ’949, ’263, ’647; injunction analysis tainted by erroneous claim construction; FRAND affects injunctive relief analysis | Motorola: no reliable damages evidence; FRAND commitment makes injunction inappropriate for SEP | Vacated/ reversed as to damages for Apple’s ’949 and ’263 and Motorola’s ’898 (in part); reversed grant of no-damages for Apple’s '647 patent; Apple’s injunction grant vacated for '949 (claim-construction change); court affirms no-injunction for Motorola’s FRAND '898 patent |
Key Cases Cited
- Cybor Corp. v. FAS Techs., Inc., 138 F.3d 1448 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (claim construction reviewed de novo)
- Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (primacy of claim language in claim construction)
- Inventio AG v. ThyssenKrupp Elevator Americas Corp., 649 F.3d 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (presumption against means-plus-function when "means" absent; consult intrinsic evidence)
- Lighting World, Inc. v. Birchwood Lighting, Inc., 382 F.3d 1354 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (analysis of whether claim terms connote structure)
- Aristocrat Techs. Austl. Pty Ltd. v. Int’l Game Tech., 521 F.3d 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (algorithms for computer-implemented means-plus-function claims)
- Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579 (U.S. 1993) (district court gatekeeping on expert admissibility focuses on methodology)
- Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137 (U.S. 1999) (Daubert gatekeeping applies to all expert testimony)
- i4i Ltd. Partnership v. Microsoft Corp., 598 F.3d 831 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (benchmarks and reliability in reasonable-royalty analysis)
- eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388 (U.S. 2006) (four-factor injunction framework)
- ResQNet.com, Inc. v. Lansa, Inc., 594 F.3d 860 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (damages must be tied to the claimed invention)
- Lucent Techs., Inc. v. Gateway, Inc., 580 F.3d 1301 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (use of comparable licenses for reasonable-royalty analysis)