Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-cv-07027/USCOURTS-cand-3_19-cv-07027-2/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:271 Patent Infringement

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United States District Court

Northern District of California

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

BOT M8 LLC,

Plaintiff,

v.

SONY CORPORATION OF AMERICA, et 

al.,

Defendants.

No. C 19-07027 WHA 

ORDER DENYING 

MOTION TO AMEND

INTRODUCTION

A patent owner seeks leave to amend its complaint again following prior amendment upon 

transfer to this District. The proposed amendments are nine weeks delayed. Patent owner 

failing to demonstrate diligence, the motion is DENIED. 

STATEMENT

Patent owner, Bot M8 LLC, originally asserted six patents, directed toward casino, arcade, 

and video games, against defendants Sony Corporation of America, Sony Corporation, and 

Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (“Sony”): U.S. Patent Nos. 8,078,540 (“the ’540 patent”); 

8,095,990 (“the ’990 patent”); 7,664,988 (“the ’988 patent”); 8,112,670 (“the ’670 patent”);

7,338,363 (“the ’363 patent”); and 7,497,777 (“the ’777 patent”). The prior complaint in this 

Court asserted the ’540, ’990, ’988, and ’670 patents against the Sony PlayStation 4, the ’363 

patent against both the Sony PlayStation 4 and three video games: MLB The Show 19; 

Case 3:19-cv-07027-WHA Document 134 Filed 04/02/20 Page 1 of 5
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Uncharted 4; and Uncharted: the Lost Legacy; and the ’777 patent against the PlayStation 4 and 

three games: the two Uncharted games and God of War (Dkt. No. 91). Bot M8 LLC v. Sony 

Corp. Am., No. C 19-07027 WHA, 2020 WL 418938 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 27, 2020). 

At a November 21 case management conference upon transfer from the Southern District 

of New York, the undersigned directed patent owner to file an amended complaint specifying, 

element-by-element, how Sony’s products allegedly infringed the asserted patents. Moreover, 

patent owner was, quite clearly, directed to reverse engineer the PlayStation 4 to support its

detailed allegations. Patent owner obliged, proclaiming it had already done so, and committed 

to a December 5 amendment deadline (Dkt. No. 67 at 2–3). 

Patent owner filed its timely amended complaint (Dkt. No. 68) then Sony moved to 

dismiss (Dkt. No. 75). Following a January 23 hearing, a January 27 order dismissed claims for 

infringement of the ’540, ’990, ’988, ’670, and (as to God of War only) ’777 patents but 

permitted assertion of the ’363 and (against the Uncharted games) ’777 patents to proceed. 

The dismissal order made clear, “[p]atent owner ha[d] already enjoyed its one free 

amendment under the rules and was given clear directions to plead well, element-by-element. 

Patent owner d[id] not deserve yet another chance to re-plead.” Nevertheless, the order gave 

patent owner until February 13 to seek leave to amend (Dkt. No. 91 at 9–10). 

Patent owner now seeks leave to amend, relying on an assertion, voiced at a January 29 

discovery hearing, that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and other anti-hacking 

statutes restrained its earlier reverse engineering efforts (Dkt. No. 122 at 1, 14). Sony opposes. 

Both parties filed two briefs, Sony’s request for a sur-reply being granted. Given the public 

health concern due to COVID-19, this motion is appropriate for disposition on the papers. 

ANALYSIS

The proposed amended complaint is untimely for reasons both parties miss. Sony

contends the amendment is governed by Patent Local Rule 3-6’s good cause standard, because 

amended pleadings at this stage also mean amended infringement contentions. But under the

local rules, patent owner’s initial infringement contentions were due December 5, the same date 

its amended complaint was due. Pat. L.R. 3-1. The Court’s November 21 amended pleading 

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schedule displaced the default rules. Just as patent owner was directed to replead, Sony was

given another chance to move for dismissal — a chance which it initially waived by answering 

the complaint filed in the Southern District of New York. See Rule 12(b). This order is about 

pleadings, not contentions. 

But good cause is the standard. Patent owner mistakes this amendment as governed by 

Rule 15, where leave is “freely give[n] . . . when justice so requires,” absent undue delay, bad 

faith, repeated failure to cure deficiencies, undue prejudice, or futility. See Foman v. Davis, 371 

U.S. 178, 182 (1962). Patent owner ignores the December 5 amended pleadings deadline. 

Where the Court has imposed a deadline, Rule 16(b)(4) permits modification “only for good 

cause.” “The central inquiry under Fed. R. Civ. P. 16(b)(4) is whether the requesting party was 

diligent in seeking the amendment.” DRK Photo v. McGraw-Hill Glob. Ed. Holds., 870 F.3d 

978, 989 (9th Cir. 2017). Here, it was not. 

Patent owner bases its February 13 proposed amendments in new reverse-engineering of 

the PlayStation 4. It contends that the DMCA and other anti-hacking statutes prevented it from 

circumventing the PlayStation 4 security protocols and decrypting the code and asserts that not 

until January 29 did the Court “authorize[] and direct[] Bot M8 for the first time to conduct 

reverse engineering of Sony’s products without restriction from various statutes.” Indeed, 

patent owner explains the amendments are “based on new evidence Bot M8 was able to obtain 

only after receiving authorization from the Court to reverse-engineer” (Dkt. No. 110 at 2, 4). 

These amendments, due December 5, are nine weeks overdue. At the November 21 case 

management conference, the Court directed: “if this is a product you can buy on the market and 

reverse engineer, you have got to do that . . . [s]o I will give you another chance to plead if you 

want to try again.” Patent owner responded that “[w]e would be happy to put in an Amended 

Complaint with claim charts. We have torn down the Sony PlayStation.” When asked how long 

it needed to amend, patent owner said “[t]wo weeks.” So, the Court set a December 5 deadline 

for amendment to include allegations drawn from reverse engineering of the PlayStation 4 (Dkt. 

Nos. 60; 67 at 2–3) (emphasis added). If patent owner had concerns about reverse engineering, 

this was the time to raise them. The clock for diligence started there.

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For nine weeks, patent owner raised no concerns about its ability to reverse engineer the 

Play Station 4. It timely filed its amended complaint (Dkt. No. 68) with no concern. Sony

moved to dismiss (Dkt. No. 75) and the parties appeared at a January 23 hearing (Dkt. No. 89)

— not a word about the DMCA or anti-hacking statutes. 

Curiously, only after the January 27 order dismissed several claims for relief (Dkt. No. 

91), at a January 29 discovery hearing, did patent owner surface any concern that the DMCA

and other anti-hacking statutes had hampered its reverse engineering of the PlayStation 4. 

Taken by surprise, the Court responded by saying that a court order to reverse engineer could 

supersede any such concerns and granted patent owner “permission, for whatever good it is, to 

have your teardown company analyze the [PlayStation 4].” The Court had no clue whether 

such concerns were valid or why they hadn’t been raised earlier (Dkt. No. 96 at 6–7). 

To be clear: the Court did not order new reverse engineering of the PlayStation 4. It 

merely excused, from some unknown violation of law, what patent owner had said it was 

already doing months earlier. Neither party asked for a modification of the deadline to reverse 

engineer —nor did the Court grant one. So, the December 5 deadline stood. 

To the extent patent owner believed it had won an extension of the December 5 deadline 

to reverse engineer the PlayStation 4, such modification was contingent upon the accuracy of 

patent owner’s statement of the law. Counsel accepts the duty of candor in appearing, and the 

Court credits many things counsel says without citation — including patent owner’s new 

handwringing regarding the DMCA. But patent owner may not, and may not reasonably 

believe it could, treble the scope of this case upon no more than its unsubstantiated, on-the-fly 

remarks at a hearing. Now, with the benefit of the record and full briefing, it becomes clear that 

there was no basis in law for patent owner’s concern or any contingent relief. 

Patent owner has never cited — and does not now cite — any authority, caselaw or 

otherwise, to support its professed fear of the DMCA or other anti-hacking statutes. Its motion 

to amend and reply brief rely entirely upon patent owner’s own verbal representations to the 

Court that reverse engineering, code decryption, and circumvention of security measures were 

mysteriously prohibited (Dkt. Nos. 110 at 2–4; 122 at 1, 14). Nor does patent owner explain 

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why it failed to raise these concerns at the November 21 case management conference, where it 

proclaimed “[w]e have torn down the Sony PlayStation” (Dkt. No. 67 at 3). And atop that, 

patent owner does not even try to explain that it only learned of the DMCA or other antihacking statutes’ restrictions on reverse engineering between the November 21 or January 23 

hearings and the January 29 hearing. So, there remains no basis for either patent owner’s fears 

or its failure to timely raise them. 

Patent owner controlled the timing of this case, decided when to sue, boasted that it had

already reverse engineered the PlayStation 4, and committed to the Court’s December 5 

amendment deadline. Now, only after Sony landed a punch in the first round does patent owner

complain “I wasn’t ready.” Absent any authority for its theory of the DMCA, these 

amendments could have, and should have, been included in the December 5 amended 

complaint. They are nine weeks overdue and, absent diligence, lack good cause. 

Finally, the proposed amended allegations regarding the ’777 patent are further untimely. 

The amendments propose to remedy the same failing addressed in the January 27 dismissal 

order but appear entirely based on public information from the web and in-game screenshots 

(Dkt. No. 110-4, ¶ 174(a)–(p)). These allegations did not rely on reverse engineering and 

should have been included in the operative complaint at the November 21 hearing and certainly 

should have been included in the December 5 amendment. Both unduly delayed and lacking 

good cause, these amendments rate as untimely. 

CONCLUSION

Patent owner’s motion to amend is DENIED. The proposed amendments are untimely. 

The January 27 order denied Sony’s motion to dismiss the claims for infringement of the ’363 

patent and, as to the Uncharted games, the ’777 patent. This case proceeds on these two claims 

of infringement. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: April 2, 2020.

WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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