I/P Engine, Inc. v. AOL, Inc. et al

Filing 131

Reply to Motion re 99 MOTION to Compel Plaintiff IP Engine, Inc.'s Motion to Compel Defendants' Compliance with this Court's Scheduling Order, or Alternatively, Motion for Protective Order filed by I/P Engine, Inc.. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1, # 2 Exhibit 2)(Sherwood, Jeffrey)

Exhibit 2 

quinn emanuel

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April 3, 2012
Charles Monterio
Dickstein Shapiro LLP
1825 Eye Street NW
Washington, DC 20006
Re:

I/P Engine, Inc. v. AOL, Inc. et al.: Claim Construction

Dear Charles:
I write in response to your letter of March 29, 2012 regarding claim construction. As Defendants
have repeatedly stated, grouping together terms that provide a common claim construction issue
is the most efficient and practical way to conduct the claim construction process. For this reason,
construing groups of terms is commonly done in patent cases. Defendants disagree with your
position that this technique is improper under the Court’s Scheduling Order.
We also decline your proposal to reduce the terms in Defendants’ list down to isolated words or
phrases taken from larger terms. You propose to reduce all the terms in Defendants’ Group #6
down to the single word “combining”; you propose to reduce all the terms in Group # 1 to
“relevant and “relevance”; and you propose to reduce all the terms in Group #2 to “scanning a
network” and “a scanning system for searching for information.” Simply construing these
isolated words or phrases is not an adequate substitute for construing the larger terms that
contain them. Accordingly, Defendants must reject your proposal.
Regarding the term “informon”, we acknowledge the parties’ agreement that this term is singular
and “informons” is plural. As for the use of the phrase “particular user” in Defendants’
construction of “informon,” Defendants have already explained that this phrase comes directly
from the specification’s own definition of “informon.” See ‘420 Patent at 3:31-33 (“As used
herein, the term ‘informon’ comprehends an information entity of potential or actual interest to a
quinn emanuel urquhart & sullivan, llp
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particular user.”)
Regarding the term “collaborative feedback data,” we agree that the parties’ proposed
constructions are similar, but we decline your invitation to adopt Plaintiff’s wording in lieu of
Defendants’.
We note that Plaintiff has still not responded to certain claim construction questions in
Defendants’ prior correspondence. For instance, Plaintiff has still not provided its position on
whether antecedent basis law applies to the term dyads in Defendants’ Group #7, such that the
second term in each dyad must refer back to the first. We have been seeking Plaintiff’s position
on this issue for nearly two weeks and have yet to receive any response. Please provide one.
Very truly yours,
/s/ Joshua L. Sohn
Joshua L. Sohn
01980.51928/4687682.1

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