TC Technology LLC v. Sprint Corporation et al
Filing
452
MEMORANDUM OPINION. Signed by Judge Richard G. Andrews on 11/14/2019. (nms)
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE
TC TECHNOLOGY LLC,
Plaintiff,
V.
Civil Action No. 16-cv-00153-RGA
SPRINT CORPORATION and SPRINT
SPECTRUM, L.P. ,
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
Kelly E. Farnan, Katharine L. Mowery, RICHARDS , LAYTON & FINGER, P.A. , Wilmington,
DE; Lawrence J. Gotts, LATHAM & WATKINS LLP, Washington, D.C.; Kevin L. Mallen,
LATHAM & WATKINS LLP, New York, NY; Gabriel S. Gross, LATHAM & WATKINS LLP,
Menlo Park, CA; Stephanie N. Solomon, QUINN EMANUEL URQUHART & SULLIVAN,
LLP, New York, NY; David S. Benyacar, Daniel L. Reisner, Maxwell C. Preston, Michael J.
Block, ARNOLD & PORTER KA YE SCHOLER LLP, New York, NY.
Attorneys for Plaintiff.
R. Montgomery Donaldson, Christina B. Vavala, POLSINELLI PC, Wilmington, DE; B. Trent
Webb, Christine A. Guastello, Jordan T. Bergsten, Colman D. McCarthy, Thomas M. Patton,
SHOOK, HARDY & BACON LLP, Kansas City, MO; Robert Reckers, David Morehan,
SHOOK, HARDY & BACON LLP, Houston, TX; Gary M. Miller, SHOOK, HARDY &
BACON LLP, Chicago, IL.
Attorneys for Defendants.
November
fl ,2019
Before the Court is the issue of claim construction for the term "central location" in U. S.
Patent No. 5,815,488 ("the '488 patent"). The Court has considered the parties' briefs. (D.I.
435, 439, 443).
I.
BACKGROUND
TC Tech filed this action on March 10, 2016, alleging that Sprint infringed the '488
patent with certain wireless services on its LTE network. (D.I. 1). TC Tech asserts two
independent method claims of the '488 patent, both of which include the disputed "central
location" term. The claims provide:
1. A method for enabling a plurality of remote locations to transmit data to a
central location comprising the steps of:
at each remote location, coding data to be transmitted by translating each
group of one or more bits of said data into a transform coefficient
associated with a particular baseband frequency in a particular subset of
orthogonal baseband frequencies allocated to the remote location, the
particular subset of orthogonal baseband frequencies allocated to each
remote location being chosen from a set of orthogonal baseband
frequencies, the subsets of baseband frequencies allocated to each remote
location being mutually exclusive[;]
at each remote location, using an electronic processor, performing an
inverse orthogonal transformation on said transform coefficients to
obtain a block of time domain data;
at each remote location, utilizing a modulator to modulate said block of
time domain data onto a carrier signal for transmission to said central
location, said carrier signal having the same carrier frequency for each
remote location;
receiving at said central location from one or more of said remote
locations, one or more blocks of time domain data modulated on one or
more of said carrier signals;
using a demodulator, demodulating said one or more blocks of time
domain data from the carrier frequency signal[;]
1
performing said orthogonal transformation on said demodulated time
domain data to reconstruct said transform coefficients, and
translating said transform coefficients into said data to be translated from
each remote location.
2. A method for enabling a plurality of remote locations to transmit data to a
central location comprising the steps of:
at each remote location, coding data to be transmitted by translating each
group of one or more bits of said data into a transform coefficient
associated with a particular baseband frequency in a particular subset of
orthogonal baseband frequencies allocated to the remote location, the
particular subset of orthogonal baseband frequencies allocated to each
remote location being chosen from a set of orthogonal baseband
frequencies, the subsets of baseband frequencies allocated to each remote
location being mutually exclusive;
at each remote location, using an electronic processor, performing an
inverse orthogonal transformation on said transform coefficients to
obtain a block of time domain data;
at each remote location, utilizing a modulator to modulate said block of
time domain data onto a carrier signal for transmission to said central
location, said carrier signal having the same carrier frequency for each
remote location[;]
receiving at said central location from one or more of said remote
locations, one or more blocks of time domain data modulated on one or
more of said carrier signals;
using a demodulator, multiplying said received one or more blocks of
time domain data with in-phase and quadrature carrier signals to obtain
in-phase and quadrature baseband signals, converting said in-phase and
quadrature baseband signals to digital form, and using an electronic
processor, performing said orthogonal transform using said in-phase and
quadrature baseband signals as real and imaginary values, respectively,
to demodulate said one or more blocks of time domain data from the
carrier frequency signal, and
performing said orthogonal transformation on the demodulated time
domain data to reconstruct said transform coefficients.
'488 patent, col. 10:47-12:24 (emphasis added).
2
II.
LEGALSTANDARD
"It is a bedrock principle of patent law that the claims of a patent define the invention to
which the patentee is entitled the right to exclude." Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312
(Fed. Cir. 2005) (en bane) (internal quotation marks omitted). "' [T]here is no magic formula or
catechism for conducting claim construction.' Instead, the court is free to attach the appropriate
weight to appropriate sources ' in light of the statutes and policies that inform patent law. "'
Soft View LLC v. Apple Inc. , 2013 WL 4758195 , at* 1 (D. Del. Sept. 4, 2013) (quoting Phillips,
415 F.3d at 1324) (alteration in original). When construing patent claims, a court considers the
literal language of the claim, the patent specification, and the prosecution history. Markman v.
Westview Instruments, Inc. , 52 F.3d 967, 977-80 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (en bane), aff'd, 517 U.S. 370
(1996). Of these sources, "the specification is always highly relevant to the claim construction
analysis. Usually, it is dispositive; it is the single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term."
Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1315 (internal quotation marks omitted).
"[T]he words of a claim are generally given their ordinary and customary meaning ....
[Which is] the meaning that the term would have to a person of ordinary skill in the art in
question at the time of the invention, i.e., as of the effective filing date of the patent application."
Id. at 1312-13 (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). "[T]he ordinary meaning of a
claim term is its meaning to [an] ordinary artisan after reading the entire patent." Id. at 1321
(internal quotation marks omitted). "In some cases, the ordinary meaning of claim language as
understood by a person of skill in the art may be readily apparent even to lay judges, and claim
construction in such cases involves little more than the application of the widely accepted
meaning of commonly understood words." Id. at 1314.
3
When a court relies solely upon the intrinsic evidence-the patent claims, the
specification, and the prosecution history-the court's construction is a determination of law.
See Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc. , 135 S. Ct. 831, 841 (2015). The court may also
make factual findings based upon consideration of extrinsic evidence, which "consists of all
evidence external to the patent and prosecution history, including expert and inventor testimony,
dictionaries, and learned treatises." Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1317-19 (internal quotation marks
omitted). Extrinsic evidence may assist the court in understanding the underlying technology,
the meaning of terms to one skilled in the art, and how the invention works. Id. Extrinsic
evidence, however, is less reliable and less useful in claim construction than the patent and its
prosecution history. Id.
"A claim construction is persuasive, not because it follows a certain rule, but because it
defines terms in the context of the whole patent." Renishaw PLC v. Marposs Societa 'per
Azioni, 158 F.3d 1243, 1250 (Fed. Cir. 1998). It follows that "a claim interpretation that would
exclude the inventor's device is rarely the correct interpretation." Osram GMBHv. Int'! Trade
Comm 'n, 505 F.3d 1351, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citation and internal quotation marks omitted).
III.
CONSTRUCTION OF DISPUTED TERMS
A.
1.
The '488 Patent
"central location"
a.
Plaintiff's proposed construction: plain meaning, which is "the equipment
(hardware and software) at a single location needed to receive communications
from a plurality of remote locations"
b.
Defendants ' proposed construction: "a physical site containing the equipment
used to communicate with each and every remote location in communication with
that site. The ' central location' includes all of the equipment at the physical site,
not just one or more subsets of the equipment, components, and processes located
at the site. In a cellular network, the 'central location' is a cellular base station."
4
c.
Court 's construction: "the equipment at a physical location that performs the
claimed functions of the ' central location'"
The parties previously did not dispute the meaning of "central location." (See D.I. 354 at
9). When a disagreement about "central location" did arise, I declined to construe the term
because the parties disputed a factual issue: "whether an individual base station sector in Sprint' s
LTE network can be considered a ' central location' such that it meets the ' mutually exclusive'
limitation." (Id.). The parties now dispute the meaning of "central location," a question oflaw.
Thus, I will construe the term.
In construing the meaning of "central location," the dispute between the parties boils
down to whether the term allows for more than one "central location." (See D.I. 443 at 3-4).
Plaintiff argues that the claim language supports its construction because it limits the equipment
of the "central location" to that "needed to receive communications from a plurality ofremote
locations." (D.I. 439 at 10). Thus, Plaintiff defines "central location . .. by reference to the
remote locations which transmit to the same equipment." (Id. at 11). Under its construction,
Plaintiff contends that there can be more than one "central location." (Id. at 15). Defendants
counter that the common use of the word "location" and the "surrounding claim language" show
that the "central location" is a "physical site and includes all of the equipment located there."
(D.I. 435 at 4). Defendants thus argue that a "central location" is a "unitary site" and that the
specification does not support "multiple ' central locations' at a single site." (Id. at 1).
"Central location" can be construed from the plain meaning of the term and the context of
the claim language. The specification does not suggest any other limitation on the term. Claims
1 and 2 recite a method of transmitting data between "remote locations" and "a central location."
'488 patent, col. 10:47-48, 11 :12-13. The Federal Circuit "has repeatedly emphasized that an
indefinite article ' a' or ' an' in patent parlance carries the meaning of ' one or more' in open-
5
ended claims containing the transitional phrase ' comprising. '" KCJ Corp. v. Kinetic Concepts,
Inc., 223 F.3d 1351 , 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2000). This is the instant circumstance. Claims 1 and 2 of
the ' 488 patent are open-ended claims that describe a method "comprising" specific steps. See
'488 patent, col. 10:4 7-48, 11 : 12-13. The claimed method transmits data from "remote
locations" to "a central location." Id. Thus, the use of the indefinite article "a" before "central
location" implies that there may be one or more "central locations."
Claims 1 and 2 also indicate that the "central location" itself must be able to perform the
claimed functions. The ' 488 patent describes the functions performed by the "central location"
to include demodulating data (11 :4-6, 12: 11- 20), performing orthogonal transformation on data
(11 :7- 9, 12:22-24), and translating transform coefficients (11: 10- 11 ). A "physical site," as
proposed by Defendants, cannot perform these functions. They must be performed by equipment
at that physical location.
Plaintiffs proposed construction adds the limitation "(hardware and software)" to the
construction, specifying the types of equipment that make up the "central location." (D.I. 439 at
3). Plaintiff states that "this meaning is discerned from the face of the claims themselves" but
does not otherwise show how the patent supports the limitation. (Id.). Including "(hardware and
software)" in the construction would therefore be an improper additional limitation. It is also
improper to include this limitation in the construction because what constitutes the "central
location" equipment is a question of fact for trial.
Therefore, I construe "central location" to mean "the equipment at a physical location
that performs the claimed functions of the ' central location."'
III.
CONCLUSION
An order consistent with this Memorandum Opinion will issue.
6
Disclaimer: Justia Dockets & Filings provides public litigation records from the federal appellate and district courts. These filings and docket sheets should not be considered findings of fact or liability, nor do they necessarily reflect the view of Justia.
Why Is My Information Online?