Limelight Networks, Inc. v. XO Communications, LLC et al

Filing 559

OPINION. See Opinion for details. Signed by District Judge John A. Gibney, Jr. on 2/2/2018. (sbea, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
Richmond Division

LIMELIGHT NETWORKS, INC.,

Plaintiff,
Civil Action No. 3:15-CV-720-JAG

V.

XO COMMUNICATIONS, LLC,
and AKAMAI TECHNOLOGIES INC.,
Defendants.
OPINION

The parties in this patent infringement litigation each operate a content delivery network

designed to accelerate the delivery of information and electronic content over the internet. Each
company uses different methods to achieve increased speed and reliability over their respective
networks, and they cross-allege patent infringement violations based on their competing

products. The parties in this case have submitted expert reports on the technical issues of the

patents at issue and the appropriate damages resulting from the alleged patent infringement.'
To no one's surprise, they each have raised objections to the proposed testimony of the other
side's experts.

The parties have moved to exclude testimony of one another's expert witnesses, and the
Court entered an Order on these motions on March 13, 2017 (the "Original Order"). (Dk. No.

' Limelight originally asserted that Akamai infringed on six of Limelight's patents: Patent No.
7,715,324 (the '324 Patent); Patent No. 8,750,155 (the '155 Patent); Patent No. 8,683,002 (the
'002 Patent); Patent No. 8,856,263 (the '263 Patent); Patent No. 9,015,348 (the '348 Patent); and
Patent No. 8,615,577 (the '577 Patent). Limelight no longer asserts the '263 Patent and the
Court found the '577 Patent invalid at summary judgment. Akamai asserts that Limelight has
infringed on five Akamai patents: Patent No. 7,693,959 (the '959 Patent); Patent No. 8,307,088
(the '088 Patent); Patent No. 8,122,102 (the '102 Patent); Patent No. 6,820,133 (the '133 Patent);
and Patent No. 7,472,178 (the '178 Patent).

420.) The parties have submitted supplemental briefs on the issues, which the Court addresses in
this Opinion.

For the reasons given below, the Court rules as follows:^
1)

Dr. Stephen Prowse, the damages expert for the plaintiff. Limelight Networks,

Inc. ("Limelight"), may not testify about royalties and license fees for the '324, '155, 577, and
'002 Patents.

2)

Prowse may testify on the topic of lost profits for the '324, '155, and '002 Patents,

although the Court has grave doubts about whether he will be able to create a viable issue to
present to the jury for decision.
3)

Paul Meyer, the damages expert for the defendant, Akamai Technology, Inc.

("Akamai"), may not testify on damages.

4)

The defendant's technical experts, Meyer, Dr. Samrat Bhattacharjee, and Dr.

Nader Mir, may testify on the topics in their expert reports.
L

STANDARD OF REVIEW

Under Federal Rule of Evidence 702, an expert must base his testimony on sufficient

facts, use reliable principles and methods, and reliably apply the principles and methods to the
facts of the case. See Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharm., Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 597 (1993). This

standard places a "special obligation upon a trial judge to ensure that any and all [expert]
testimony ... is not only relevant, but reliable. Kumho Tire Co. v. Carmichael, 526 U.S. 137,
147 (1999) (internal quotations and citation omitted). Further, due to the difficulty in evaluating
expert testimony and the risk of misleading a jury, trial courts exercise more control over experts

than lay witnesses when weighing the probative value of an expert's opinion against its potential

^ With this Opinion, the Court has issued an Amended Order changing the March 13, 2017
Order.

prejudice. Daubert, 509 U.S. at 595. A party must establish the admissibility of its expert's
testimony by a preponderance of the evidence. Maryland Cas. Co. v. Therm-O-Disc, Inc., 137
F.3d 782, 783 (4th Cir. 1998).

Successful plaintiffs in patent cases are entitled to "damages adequate to compensate for

the infringement, but in no event less than a reasonable royalty." 35 U.S.C. § 284. The plaintiff
may show a reasonable royalty by pointing to a royalty paid in a prior license for the technology
at issue or for a comparable technology. Rite-Hite Corp. v. Kelley Co., 56 F.3d 1538, 1554 (Fed.

Cir. 1995) (citations omitted). If such a license does not exist, a party can show a reasonable

royalty by looking to the result of a hypothetical negotiation between the parties to license the

allegedly infringed technology. Courts also consider the extent to which the infringer has used
the patent, the relationship between the parties, and otherfactors.
II, DISCUSSION

A. Damages Experts

The patents in this case form small parts of larger systems that combine dozens, if not
hundreds, of patented items or methods. Since the alleged infringement only applies to part of a

greater process, the parties' claims raise the issue how to allocate profits or damages among the
small parts of a large whole. Judge Learned Hand characterized the problem as "unanswerable."
Cincinnati Car Co. v. New York Rapid Transit Corp., 66 F. 2d 592, 593 (2d Cir. 1933).

Notwithstanding Judge Hand's candid and perceptive comment, litigants have come up with
formulas and theories to answer the unanswerable question. Most, if not all, of these inventions

would be laughed out of court in run of the mill cases. Apparently, not so in patent cases.

The parties in this case have explained that they have to prove damages, that it is a hard
thing to do, so we have to resort to the kinds of theoretical concoctions discussed below. Courts

have accepted some of these theories, so this Court will allow testimony about them. But

allowing the witness to speak does not mean that his testimony will meet an ultimate burden of

proof, or even a burden of going forward. Whatever testimony comes in may not justify
submitting an issue to the jury in this case.
1. Limelisht's Damases Expert Dr. Stephen Prowse

a. Reasonable Royalty on Limelight's'324, '155, and '577 Patents

Dr. Stephen Prowse attempts to develop a reasonable royalty for Limelight's '324, '155,

and '577 Patents by creating a hypothetical negotiation between the parties to estimate what
Akamai would have negotiated to pay Limelight for a license on the patents instead of infringing.
The Court must examine this kind of testimony particularly closely, since it relies on an expert's

willingness to offer an opinion on what would have occurred in a negotiation that did not occur
and never would have occurred, since the parties show no willingness to negotiate.

Prowse uses a potentially admissible bargaining model developed by Dr. Ariel

Rubinstein,^ but he impermissibly fails to tie the model to the facts of this case. The Court will
not allow Prowse to present his methodology to a jury.

Experts may use economic models to predict the outcome of hypothetical negotiations,
but the expert must at least tie the model to the facts of the case. VirnetX, Inc. v. Cisco Sys., Inc.,
767 F.3d 1308, 1332 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (rejecting a model because "[i]t itself asserts nothing about
what situations in the real world fit [its] premises" and stating that "[a]nyone seeking to invoke

[a] theorem as applicable to a particular situation must establish that fit"). Further, "[b]eginning
from a fundamentally flawed premise and adjusting it based on legitimate considerations specific

^ Ariel Rubinstein, Perfect Equilibrium in a Bargaining Model, 50 ECONOMETRICA 97, 98-99
(Jan. 1982).
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to the facts of the case nevertheless results in a fundamentally flawed conclusion." Uniloc USA,

Inc. V. Microsoft Corp., 632 F.3d 1292, 1317 (Fed. Cir. 2011).

As Prowse explained during the evidentiary hearing, he took a number of steps to
determine a reasonable royalty for the '324, '155, and '577 Patents. First, Prowse determined
how much Akamai benefited from its alleged infringement on Limelight's patents by computing

the portion of Akamai's revenue attributable to the specific patents at issue.

Through his

calculations, he determined that 5.9%-8.4% of Akamai's revenues stemmed from infringement
on the '324 and '155 Patents and that $63.3 million stemmed from infringement on the '577

Patent.

Next, Prowse assumed that the parties, as rational actors, would agree to a license to

split these revenues so that each party could make more money than it would in the absence of a
license. To determine how the parties would split the revenues, Prowse relied on Rubinstein's

model, which essentially stands for the idea that the more patient party in a negotiation will fare
better than the less patient party. Prowse determined he could appropriately use the Rubinstein
model because the parties are rational economic actors with similar levels of negotiating skill.
Prowse then looked to Bloomberg, a financial news and reporting source, for each company's

weighted average cost ofcapital ("WACC") as a proxy for each party's relative patience.'^ Next,
Prowse applied a modified version of the Rubinstein model to predict the results of the

hypothetical negotiation and determine how the parties would split Akamai's benefit from
infringing on the '324, '155, and '577 Patents.

^Prowse explained at the evidentiary hearing that companies use WACCs to discount their future
cash flows, which shows a company's patience for future revenues. A company with a higher
WACC has a preference for money coming in sooner (and therefore has less patience) than a

company with a lower WACC. Even though the companies may use WACCs to value future
income streams from their patents, Prowse presented no evidence that the companies use
WACCs to value the patents themselves.

Prowse's method is simply fancy guesswork. His use of the Rubinstein model fails

Akamai's challenge because it contains almost no basis in facts relevant to this case. Although
Prowse's method is not, as Akamai argues, a rule of thumb or a 50-50 split, Prowse does not

tether the methodology to the facts of this case. As Prowse explained, many factors go into

calculating a company's WACC such as its debt, cash flows, the company's size, and its assets.

Using WACC as a proxy for patience in the Rubinstein model does not consider the actual stakes

in the hypothetical negotiation or even the specific patents negotiated.^ As a result, Prowse's
model would split the gains in the same way for a fundamental patent at the core of a company's
technology and for a piece of technology that the company might consider not at all valuable.
Indeed, the model would split any negotiation between the parties in the same way, no matter the
stakes. Limelight argues that a jury can determine whether Prowse chose the right WACC in his

analysis, but this argument misses the point. It is not that Prowse chose the wrong WACC as an
input—it is that using WACCs the way he does has no relationship to the patents in this case and
cannot reliably show how the parties would negotiate over these patents. Although Prowse later
adjusts his initial split according to the Georgia-Pacific factors, he adjusts an unsubstantiated,
wholly unreliable number. Such analysis fails to reliably apply the facts of the case to the
methodology selected.

^Prowse used a carnegotiation as an example, stating that a buyer might need a car that day and
would therefore pay more for a car than a buyer with no time constraints. He also says that a
dealer may need to sell a car that day to meet a quota and therefore accept a lower price.
Prowse's use of quarterly-calculated WACCs, which represent the patience of the corporation as
a whole, fails to consider the patience the companies might have in a specific negotiation. For
example, a dealership may have met its quota on all but one of its many models for the month,
leaving it with a generally high level of patience. If the dealership needed to sell just one
particular car model, however, Prowse's application of the Rubenstein model would ignore the
impatience for that one car model.

h. Reasonable Royalty on Limelight's '002 Patent

Prowse develops a royalty rate for Limelight's '002 Patent by analyzing Akamai's

acquisition of Cotendo. His royalty rate for the '002 Patent, however, fails to adequately
apportion the total value of the technology from that acquisition to the technology in the '002
Patent. The Court rejects his analysis because the Federal Circuit has cautioned trial courts
against presentingjuries with such potentially prejudicial analysis.

When a patent's claims comprise only an individual component of a larger multi-

component product, "it is the exception, not the rule, that damages may be based upon the value
of the multi-component product."

VirnetX, 767 F.3d at 1326 (stating that "only where the

patented feature creates the basis for customer demand or substantially creates the value of the
component parts" may an expert compute damages using the entire market value of an accused

product). Damages analysis must therefore apportion the value of a multi-component product
attributable to the patent or patent claims at issue as opposed to other patents used in the product.
Ericsson, Inc. v. D-Link Sys., Inc., 773 F.3d 1201, 1226 (Fed. Cir. 2014) ("The essential

requirement is that the ultimate reasonable royalty award must be based on the incremental value
that the patented invention adds to the end product.").

The Federal Circuit instructs courts and

experts to apportion damages by first determining the portion of a company's revenues
attributable to the alleged patent (known as the "damages base") and then applying a reasonable
royalty to that base.

Id. at 1227. Courts should avoid using the entire revenues of a multi-

component product and adjusting the reasonable royalty rate downward. Id.^ Adjusting a
royalty rate, rather than the base, runs the risk of misleading a jury. Id.

^ The Ericsson court stated:
It is not that an appropriately apportioned royalty award could never be fashioned
by starting with the entire market value of a multi-component product—^by, for

To determine damages for Akamai's alleged infringement on Limelight's '002 Patent,
Prowse looks to Akamai's acquisition of Cotendo. There, Akamai paid Cotendo a 15% royalty

on all of the acquired technology, including the '571 Patent which he compares to Limelight's
'002 Patent^ Prowse then determines that the '571 Patent acquired in the deal (which he claims

is comparable with the '002 Patent), comprised 59% of the total value of Cotendo's technology.
He next multiplies 59% by the 15% royalty paid in the acquisition to get 8.9%, which he argues
shows that Akamai paid an 8.9% effective royalty for technology comparable to the '002 Patent.

Last, Prowse adjusts 8.9% to 8% using certain Georgia-Pacific factors and multiplies that
royalty by Akamai's accused revenues to reach his final damages result.
The Court rejects Prowse's analysis because he apportions the royalty rate from the prior

acquisition rather than determining the appropriate base of damages from Akamai's revenues.
Prowse relies on Cotendo's projected revenues from the comparable technology and does not
even seek to determine what portion of Akamai's accused revenues he can properly attribute to
the '002 Patent. He simply looks to Akamai's prior acquisition of a different corporation and
assumes that because a comparable patent accounted for 59% of that corporation's projected
revenues that the same should apply for Akamai's revenues. This methodological flaw lacks any

instance, dramatically reducing the royalty rate to be applied in those cases—it is
that reliance on the entire market value might mislead the jury, who may be less
equipped to understand the extent to which the royalty rate would need to do the
work in such instances. Thus, where the entire value of a machine as a marketable

article is 'properly and legally attributable to the patented feature,' the damages
owed to the patentee may be calculated by reference to that value. Where it is not,
however, courts must insist on a more realistic starting point for the royalty
calculations by juries—often, the smallest salable unit and, at times, even less.
Id. at 1227 (internal citations omitted).

' The parties dispute whether the 15% royalty applied to Cotendo's projected revenues in the
absence of the acquisition or to Akamai's projected revenues from use of the technology
following the acquisition, but Prowse told the Court that the 15% applied to Cotendo's projected
revenues.

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foundation and fails to determine the appropriate base of Akamai's revenues attributable to the
'002 Patent.

As the Federal Circuit stated in Ericsson, it is not that an expert may never

apportion a royalty award by using the entire market value of a multi-component product, but the
n

risk of misleading a jury remains too high for the Court to admit Prowse's analysis.
c. Lost Profitsfor Limelight's '324, '155, and '002 Patents

At least on the surface, Prowse's lost profit analysis properly apportions lost profits

damages to the patented features driving demand for the products, and he may present his
analysis to the jury.

In order to recover lost profits in a patent case, the patentee must "show a reasonable

probability that, 'but for' the infringement, it would have made the sales that were made by the
infringer." Rite-Hite Corp. v. Kelley Co., 56 F.3d 1538, 1545 (Fed. Cir. 1995). A plaintiffmay
show but-for causation by establishing four factors: (1) demand for the patented product, (2) the

absence of acceptable noninfringing alternatives, (3) the plaintiffs capacity to exploit the
demand, and (4) the amount of profit the patentee would have made. See Versata Software Inc.
V. SAP Am., Inc., 717 F.3d 1255, 1263-64 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (citing Panduit Corp. v. Stahlin Bros.

Fibre Works, Inc., 575 F.2d 1152, 1156 (6th Cir. 1978)). Under the second Panduit factor, two
market factors can cause issues for an expert trying to show an absence of non-infringing

alternatives.

First, the allegedly infringed product can contain multiple innovations. With

"multi-component products, it may often be the case that no one patentee can obtain lost profits

^ The Court distinguishes the Federal Circuit's decision in Commonwealth Scientific and
Industrial Research Organization v. Cisco Systems, 809 F.3d 1295 (Fed. Cir. 2015). In that case,

an expert used an actual royalty rate considered by the parties around the time of the hypothetical
negotiation as his basis for a royalty rate, and the court determined that the expert did not need to
apportion the royalty base. Id. at 1301-04. Here, however, Prowse's analysis is not so cut and
dry and depends on reverse-engineering a royalty rate using a different company's revenues and
a different, even if comparable, technology.

on the overall product—^the Panduit test is a demanding one. A patentee cannot obtain lost

profits unless it and only it could have made the sale—there are no infringing alternatives or, put
differently, the customer would not have purchased the [accused] product without the infringing
feature." Mentor Graphics Corp. v. EVE-USA, Inc., 851 F.3d 1275, 1289 (Fed. Cir. 2017). For

example, if the customer would have bought the infringing product without the patented feature
or with a different, non-infringing feature, then the patentee cannot establish entitlement to lost

profits for that particular sale. Id. at 1286.^
In this case, Prowse's report explains why non-infringing alternatives did not exist, and

Akamai does not challenge Prowse's analysis on this issue for the purpose of their motion to
exclude.

Akamai instead takes issue with Prowse's failure to determine that Limelight's

patented features drove demand for Akamai's allegedly infringing products. It is true that "the
entire market value rule . . . permits recovery of damages based on the value of the entire

apparatus containing several features[] where the patent related feature is the basis for customer
demand." State Indus., Inc. v. Mor-Flo Indus., Inc., 883 F.2d 1573, 1580 (Fed. Cir. 1989)

(citation omitted). That said, "the entire market rule is properly applied when the nonpatented
devices cannot be sold without the patented feature." Id. (citing Kori Corp. v. Wilco Marsh

Buggies & Draglines, Inc., 761 F.2d 649, 656 (Fed. Cir. 1985)). Prowse's reports say that
Akamai could not sell its products without Limelight's patented features, so Prowse need not

specifically show that the patented features drove demand for the accused products. He also
need not further apportion damages to specific components of Akamai's multi-component

products where he has shown a lack of non-infringing alternatives by the defendant.

^ The jury in Mentor specifically found that no non-infringing alternatives existed and that
customers would not have bought the defendant's products if it removed the accused features.
This satisfied Panduit step two.
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A second possible hurdle to recovering lost profits analysis arises when competitors other

than the plaintiff and the defendant sell competing products in the market. In that case, where
the other competitors may have also infringed on the plaintiffs patents in order to sell their

products, a plaintiff may apportion lost profits based on the patentee's market share to avoid
faulting a defendant for another competitor's conduct. State Indus., Inc. v. Mor-Flo Indus., Inc.,
883 F.2d 1573, 1580 (Fed. Cir. 1989) ("In our view, the foregoing discussion compels the
conclusion that the district court acted well within its discretion when it awarded damages for

Mor-Flo's infringing activity based on State's share of the market."). Prowse performs this
analysis in his reports, and he may present his opinions to the jury.

When fully presented in court, Prowse's Panduit analysis may not hold water.

Something as hypothetical as his reasoning always stands a good chance of having no persuasive
value. At this stage, however, Prowse at least says that he has considered the relevant factors,
and the Court will allow him to testify.

d. Reasonable Royaltyfor the '348 Patent

Prowse calculates a reasonable royalty for the '348 Patent by using a non-infringing

alternative proffered by Akamai and estimating the cost of implementing that alternative.

Specifically, Prowse determines the cost of using Akamai employees to replace the automated
"suggested policy feature" contained in the '348 Patent. In his analysis, Prowse looks to the
information available to him and makes estimates about the number of employees required to

manually implement the patented feature and the cost of those employees.

The inputs are

certainly imperfect, and Prowse will need to defend his choices, but he uses a straight-forward,
reliable methodology and a jury can critique his inputs at trial.

11

2. Akamai's Dama2es Expert Paul Mever

Akamai's damages expert, Paul Meyer, uses prior license agreements and acquisitions to
estimate reasonable royalties for all of the patents at issue in this case. The Court grants

Limelight's motion to exclude his testimony on all patents because he (1) fails to properly value
the prior technology used as his point of comparison, and (2) fails to show technological

comparability between the prior technology and the patents here.'®
To determine a reasonable royalty rate for a patented technology, a court may look to

prior acquisition agreements and patent license agreements from cases involving sufficiently
comparable technology. VirnetX, 767 F.3d at 1330. An expert must show that prior agreements
contain comparable technology and that the agreements themselves compare economically to the

hypothetical license at issue in the present case. Wordtech Sys. v. Integrated NetworkSolutions
Inc., 609 F.3d 1308, 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2010). Courts recognize that such a technique contains a
certain built-in uncertainty, but an expert's reliance on a "loose or vague comparability . . .
between different technologies or licenses does not suffice." LaserDynamics, Inc. v. Quanta

Computer, Inc., 694 F.3d 51, 79 (Fed. Cir. 2012).
For each patent at issue, Meyer looked at prior acquisitions of companies involving
comparable technology, prior licenses for comparable technology, or both. Meyer followed a

similar methodology for each patent by considering: (1) the market value of the technology
involved in the prior license or acquisition; (2) differences between the prior technology, the
license for that technology, and the current technology; and (3) other relevant Georgia-Pacific

Meyer initially looked to past settlement agreements as a portion of his analysis, but dropped
his reliance on those agreements. Limelight also initially took issue with Mir's analysis of
settlement agreements, but Meyer no longer relies on Mir in his analysis.
12

factors. The Court will evaluate his analysis patent-by-patent to determine the admissibility of
Meyer's expert report.

a. Limelight's '324 and'155 Patents

The Court excludes Meyer's reasonable royalty analysis for Limelight's '324 and '155

Patents because he fails to show technological comparability between the prior technology and

the patents at issue and because his methodology fails to appropriately value the prior
technology. To calculate a reasonable royalty for these two patents, Meyer looked at past
software licenses for a product called FastTCP as well as Akamai's acquisition of FastSoflt, Inc.,

FastTCP's owner. Meyer's analysis collapses where he (1) indicates in his Rebuttal Report that
he actually does not believe that FastTCP compares technologically with the '324 and '155

Patents (Meyer Rebuttal Rep., ^ 47) and (2) fails to attribute the value from FastSofl's
acquisition to the specific technology involved here.

Despite Meyer's testimony at the evidentiary hearing that FastTCP and the '324 and '155
Patents are comparable because they build upon the FastTCP technology and all relate to

optimizing speed, his Rebuttal Report says that "the technology claimed in the '324 and '155
patents are distinct from the benefits that FastTCP technology itself provides" and claims that
"the '324/'155 patents are not synonymous with speed and performance." (Meyer Rebuttal Rep.,
H47). Meyer cannot simultaneously attack Prowse for comparing the technologies and then also
compare them for his own analysis. The Court rejects his testimony because he fails to show
technical comparability between FastTCP and the patents here.
Next, Meyer looks to the "completed technology" from the Akamai-FastSoft merger as
the source of FastTCP's value, but he never attempts to determine which portion of that value he

can attribute to the FastTCP as opposed to FastSoft's other technology.

13

In ActiveVideo

Networks, Inc. v. Verizon Communications, Inc., an expert looked to a prior license for both

software and a number of patents as a source of value for the patents, and the court permitted the

expert's testimony on the patents' value even though he did not make "any attempt to

'disaggregate the value'" of certain patents from the software. 694 F.3d 1312, 1333 (Fed. Cir.
2012). Meyer's failure goes beyond that of ActiveVideo's, however, because Meyer does not
look to a discrete license for a patent but instead looks to the vastly more complicated acquisition
of an entire company. When looking at all of the technology acquired in the transaction, Meyer
makes no attempt to delineate the value attributable to the technology comparable to the '324

and '155 Patents as opposed to any other technology acquired. This serves as an independent
ground for exclusion. To be clear, the Court does not exclude Meyer for his decision to use
completed technology as a starting point—it excludes him because his methodology does not
account for the value of the patents in this case out of the entire value of completed technology in
a prior acquisition.

b. Limelight's'348 Patent'^
The Court excludes Meyer's testimony on the '348 Patent because he uses an arbitrary
method to determine the patent's value. To value the '348 Patent, Meyer looks to Akamai's

acquisition of Blaze Software, Inc. ("Blaze").

In performing his valuation, Meyer uses

contemporaneous documents valuing Blaze's Core and Completed Technology.

Meyer then

determines that the technologies acquired in the Blaze acquisition and the '348 Patent both are
technically comparable.

Then, because the Blaze acquisition involved four buckets of

technology, Meyer divides the total value of the technology by four. Meyer admits that he did

As part of its argument on this issue. Limelight initially moved to exclude Meyer's opinions
on the '577 Patent.

The Court has since found the '577 Patent invalid and therefore does not

address the patent here.
14

not perform any analysis to determine whether the four buckets of technology had equal value
and stated that nobody ever told him that they had equal value.Despite this methodology,

Meyer recognized at the evidentiary hearing that different patents may have highly varying

values.'^ Meyer's even-division method fails because it simply ignores facts in this case that
Meyerhimself recognizes—^that different patents have different values.
c. Limelight's '002 Patent

For the '002 Patent, Meyer again arbitrarily assigns equal value to unknown buckets of
technology, and the Court excludes his testimony. As with the other patents, Meyer looks to

Akamai's acquisition of Cotendo and uses the value placed on "completed technology" in that
acquisition to develop a starting point for the '002 Patent's value. Meyer says that prior to the
acquisition, Cotendo had thirteen customer offerings and five patent applications which had not
yet issued patents (the technology he compares to the '002 Patent had not yet issued as a patent).
Meyer then divides the entire value of the completed technology by thirteen to determine the
value of the comparable technology.

Meyer admitted at the evidentiary hearing that he did not have any evidence showing that
all thirteen customer offerings had the same value.

Even worse, he did not provide an

The Court recognizes that estimating a reasonable royalty involves some level of imperfection
and also recognizes district courts have permitted an expert to divide the value of a license
equally between a certain number of patents. See e.g., Oracle America, Inc. v. Google, Inc., No.
10-3561, 2012 WL 850705, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 13, 2012). This case differs from Oracle,
however, because in that case the expert had information about the relative value of the 22
patents in that case, whereas Meyer admits that he lacks any information about the other
technologies.
At the hearing, Meyer made an analogy to a carton of eggs, finding it reasonable to assume
that each egg within the carton had equal value in the absence of other information. Meyer,
however, acknowledges that different patents can have vastly different values. Because he did
not perform any analysis of the other patented technology involved in the prior transaction,
Meyer values the closed carton without opening it to see if any eggs are broken, spoiled, or made
of gold. This methodological flaw lacks reliability and Meyer cannot present it to a jury.
15

explanation for whyhe can (1) reasonably assign Cotendo's unissued patent the same value as an
established offering or (2) assign the unissued patent the same value as one of the 13 offerings
without needing to divide the total completed technology by 18—^the total number of offerings

plus patent applications. This analysis fails to tie its methods to the facts of the case and the
Court must exclude it from trial.
d. Akamai's '959 and '088 Patents

For the '959 Patent, Meyer again uses an arbitrary method to assign value to buckets of

patents even though he admits he lacks any knowledge about them. The Court excludes this
testimony. Meyer estimated a reasonable royalty for the '959 Patent by looking at a prior license
between Akamai and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ("MIT"), which licensed a

number of technologies, including the '959 Patent.'"^ Meyer values the total license at forty
million dollars. Meyer evenly split the forty million by four because the MIT-Akamai license
involved four buckets of technology.

Just as with the '348 and '002 Patents, Meyer acknowledges that he does not know the
value of the other technologies at issue and says that he did not attempt to independently value

that technology. Meyer also recognizes that the value of the patents in each bucket could vary
widely in their value. Exacerbating his flaw, Meyer also allots all ten million dollars to the '959
Patent despite the six other patents in that bucket. Meyer does this because Akamai considers
the '959 Patent to be fundamental to its products, but he acknowledges that the bucket contains
at least one other fundamental patent. In this instance, Meyer inexplicably divides the value of
the license by four in one instance (where he had no indication as to the value of the other three

buckets), yet fails to further apportion value to the patents within the $10 million bucket even

The Court also excludes his testimony valuing Akamai's '088 Patent, which Meyer values in
the same way as the '959 Patent.
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though he did have an indication about the value of other patents within that bucket. This
misstep goes beyond a mere failure to aggregate value within a license as in ActiveVideo.
Instead, it is an internally inconsistent methodology that acts counter to the facts at Meyer's
disposal.
e. Akamai's '133, '178, and '102 Patents

Meyer's royalty analysis for the '133, '178, and '102 Patents, which uses prior
acquisition agreements to estimate damages, also fails to meet the Daubert standards.
For these patents, Meyer looks to past acquisitions as sources of value for comparable

technology.'^ At the beginning of his analysis, Meyer refers to technology acquired in fourteen
prior Akamai transactions and assigns the transaction as one either targeted at (1) increasing
Akamai's customer base ("scale"), (2) increasing Akamai's product offerings ("product

growth"), or (3) improving current technology ("technology tuck-ins").

Next, Kit Knox,

Akamai's Vice President of Media Engineering, looked at the technology in each prior
transaction and determined that it "related to" one or more of three content delivery network

services: delivery, performance, and/or storage. For the '133, '178, and '102 Patents, Meyer
determines whether the technology relates to delivery of data, performance of the network, or

storage, and then uses the value of the prior transactions as a means of estimating damages.
As stated above, damages experts may only rely on prior license agreements or

acquisitions that are comparable to the hypothetical license created for the purpose of estimating
damages. Wordtech Sys. v. Integrated Network Solutions Inc., 609 F.3d 1308, 1320 (Fed. Cir.
2010). Meyer admits that he is not a technical expert, yet relies on conversations with non-

In the course of his analysis, Meyer also compares the technology in a few of these prior
acquisitions with the '959 and '088 Patents. For the same reasons as stated here, those
comparisons fail.
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expert Kjiox as the basis for his technological comparability conclusions. Notably, Meyer does
not—as experts are permitted to do—use Knox's statements as the basis for his own opinion on
technical comparability. Instead, Meyer relies upon Knox's comparability conclusions without

providing any explanation as to how he made them or why they are reliable. Meyer provides the
Court with nothingmore than the ipse dixit of a non-expert to support his damages analysis. The

jury would have no way to evaluate the comparability analysis, and the Court cannot allow
Meyer to provide the jury with unsupported technological testimony about which Meyer lacks
any knowledge and provides no detail.

Further, even if Meyer could appropriately rely on Mr. Knox, his analysis fails because,

as with other patents, he provides no reliable method to apportion the value of "completed
technology" from the prior acquisitions to any specific patent applications relevant here. The
Court grants Limelight's motion to exclude Meyer's opinions on reasonable royalties for these
patents.

B, Technical Experts

Akamai offers several technical experts to testify about characteristics of the technology
in this case and the similarities and differences between Akamai's current system and other
systems.
L Dr. Samrat Bhattachariee

The Court rejects Limelight's challenges to Dr. Bhattacharjee's testimony.

Limelight

says that Bhattacharjee: (1) fails to support his analysis regarding Limelight's '002 Patent and
the technology at issue in Akamai's acquisition of Cotendo; (2) fails to support his conclusion
that the Limelight '577 Patent is void for obviousness; and (3) fails to support his conclusions

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regarding non-infringing alternatives for the Limelight '348 and '002 Patents. As the Court
stated at the initial Daubert hearing, these remain fact issues for a jury to decide.

First, Bhattachaijee says that the '002 Patent is not as closely related to the patents in the

Akamai-Cotendo acquisition as argued by Limelight's expert. Dr. Kevin Almeroth.

Bhattacharjee, however, explains his comparability analysis by first comparing the four patent

applications at issue in Cotendo and then determining that the '571 Patent involved in the
Cotendo acquisition contains broader claims than the '002 Patent and involves fewer steps.

Bhattacharjee may present this analysis to the jury who can then judge the weight of his
testimony.

Second, Bhattacharjee adequately supports his opinion that Limelight's '577 Patent is
invalid for obviousness. A patent that either combines elements of prior art or implements a

variation of prior art in a way that would be deemed obvious to one skilled in the art is invalid.
KSR Int'l Co. V. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 395, 418 (2007). An expert opining on obviousness may

not rely on mere conclusions, but must state "some articulated reasoning with some rational
underpinning." Id', Innogenetics, N.V. v. Abbott Labs., 512 F.3d 1363, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2008).
Bhattacharjee's report first explains why he believes that certain prior art anticipates the '577
Patent's claims. He then demonstrates why, even if no single piece of prior art alone anticipates

the claims, combining elements from prior art still anticipates the '577 Patent.

In his opening

and rebuttal report, Bhattacharjee goes through the claims contained in the '577 Patent, the
Court's claim construction order, and the prior art to compare the technology and come to his
conclusions. This analysis provides sufficient explanation for admissibility.

Third, Bhattacharjee adequately supports his opinions on the non-infringing alternatives
for the '348 and '002 Patents. A key part of determining a reasonable royalty under Georgia

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Pacific "is whether the accused infringer had acceptable non-infringing alternatives available to
it at the time of the hypothetical negotiation." Fresenius Med. Care Holdings, Inc., v. Baxter
Int'l, Inc., 2006 WL 1646113, at *1 (N.D. Cal. June 12, 2006) (citation omitted). For the '348

Patent, Bhattacharjee looks to the deposition testimony of multiple Akamai employees to analyze
Akamai's use of a "Suggested Policy" feature and explains that disabling the feature could serve

as a non-infringing alternative.

For the '002 Patent, Bhattacharjee may properly rely on

statements from Akamai employees as facts used to develop his opinion on non-infringing

alternatives for the patent. Daubert, 509 U.S. at 592 (explaining that an expert may offer

opinions "not based on first-hand knowledge"). A jury may consider the weight of his evidence
and any possible prejudice that could result from Bhattacharjee relying on Akamai employees
when drawing his conclusions.
2. Dr. Nader Mir and Paul Mever

As Experts on Non-Obviousness ofAkamai's '088 and '959 Patents

Mir and Meyer adequately demonstrate a nexus of commercial success between
Akamai's products and the '088 and '959 Patents to survive Limelight's Daubert challenge.
"[A] nexus must be established between the merits of the claimed invention and the evidence of
commercial success before that evidence may become relevant to the issue of obviousness."

Iron Grip Barbell Co. v. USA Sports, Inc., 392 F.3d 1317, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2004). An increase in
sales following the introduction of a patented feature may also demonstrate a nexus between the

patent and commercial success. Rambus Inc. v. Hynix Semiconductor Inc., 254 F.R.D. 597, 602
(N.D. Cal. 2008).

Meyer and Mir discuss Akamai's success following the introduction of the '959 and '088
Patents and the value added from those patents into the industry. Such explanations establish a
sufficient nexus to argue the non-obviousness of the patents due to commercial success
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following their introduction. Further, Mir states that the market had a long-felt need for each

patent based on his expertise and knowledge about the content delivery network market and its
development. He may present this testimony and his reasoning behind it to a jury. The Court
has ordered the parties to agree to three to four articles showing industry praise for Akamai's
innovations, which Mir and Meyer say contain the '088 and '959 Patent innovations as
fundamental for the innovation's creation.
III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, the Court grants in part and denies in part Akamai's motion

to exclude the expert testimony of Dr. Steven Prowse. The Court grants the motion in all
respects except Prowse's lost profits analysis. Prowse may also testify as to a reasonable royalty
for Limelight's asserted '348 Patent based on the Court's sua sponte review of Prowse's analysis
on that issue. The Court grants in part and denies in part Limelight's motion to exclude Paul

Meyer, Dr. Samrat Bhattacharjee, and Dr. Nader Mir. The Court grants the motion as to Meyer's
damages opinions and denies the motion as to all other matters.
The Court shall enter an appropriate Amended Order. Let the Clerk send a copy of this
Opinion to all counsel of record.

Date: Februarv2>. 2018
Richmond, VA

John A. Gibney, Jr.
United States Dis

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