Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_14-cv-04275/USCOURTS-cand-3_14-cv-04275-5/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 Californi

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

LONGITUDE LICENSING LTD., et al.,

Plaintiffs, 

v. 

APPLE INC., 

Defendant. 

Case No. 14-cv-04275-EDL 

ORDER REGARDING JOINT 

PROPOSED SCHEDULE 

I. Introduction 

 This is a patent infringement case brought by Plaintiff Longitude Licensing Ltd. against 

Apple Inc. There are thirteen patents at issue in this case, all directed to flash memory systems 

and various aspects of operating and managing flash memory systems. FAC ¶¶ 16-30. There are 

six patents entitled “Partial Block Data Programming and Reading Operations in a Non-Volatile 

Memory.” FAC ¶¶ 16-21 (the ‘424 patent, the ‘987 patent, the ‘177 patent, the ‘421 patent, the 

’702 patent, and the ‘490 patent). There are three patents entitled “Flash Memory Data Correction 

and Scrub Technique.” FAC ¶¶ 22-24 (the ‘835 patent, the ‘607 patent, and the ‘095 patent). The 

‘488 patent is entitled “Method for Fast Wake-Up of a Flash Memory System.” FAC ¶ 25. The 

‘611 patent is entitled “Power Management Block for Use in a Non-Volatile Memory System.” 

FAC ¶ 26. The ‘865 patent is entitled “Maintaining Erase Counts in Non-Volatile Storage 

System.” FAC ¶ 27. The ‘729 patent is entitled “Automated Wear Leveling in Non-Volatile 

Storage Systems.” FAC ¶ 28. Plaintiff alleges direct and indirect/induced infringement of each 

patent. 

 In light of the potential size and breadth of this case, during the case management 

conference on March 10, 2015, the Court ordered that: 

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 Initially, discovery should focus primarily on ownership and standing, as well as discovery 

directed to narrowing the asserted claims. 

 Pursuant to the parties’ agreement, there is a limit of 200 hours of fact depositions per side. 

Each side may allocate those hours as it sees fit between party and non-party depositions, 

subject to the general limitations imposed by the federal rules such as proportionality. 

 Expert depositions shall be limited to one seven-hour deposition for each expert witness 

for each expert report submitted by the expert. 

 Defendant shall serve its invalidity contentions in accordance with Patent Local Rule 3-3 

no later than April 13, 2015. All subsequent deadlines in the Patent Local Rules are 

temporarily stayed. 

 Plaintiff shall serve a Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 30(b)(6) deposition notice regarding 

source code on Defendant. No later than two weeks after the deposition takes place, the 

parties shall meet and confer to agree on and provide to the Court a proposed schedule for 

this case at least through claim construction. 

Dkt. No. 46. The parties have filed a Joint Proposed Schedule, in which they identify agreed-upon 

dates as well as several disputes about narrowing the case and the case schedule. 

III. Discussion 

A. Agreed-Upon Dates 

 The parties present a number of agreed-upon dates through claim construction, and the 

Court adopts those dates as modified below: 

 6/18/15: Longitude identifies no more 13 claims per patent and not more than a total of45 

claims 

 7/2/15: Apple identifies no more than 15 prior art references against each patent and not more 

than a total of 56 references 

 7/16/15: Exchange Lists of Proposed Terms for Construction [Patent Local Rule 4-1(a)] 

 8/6/15: Exchange of Proposed Constructions and Identification Intrinsic/Extrinsic Evidence 

[Patent Local Rule 4-2(a)(b)] 

 9/3/15: Joint Claim Construction and Prehearing Statement [Patent Local Rule 4-3] 

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 10/5/15: Completion of Claim Construction Discovery [Patent Local Rule 4-4] 

 10/19/15: Plaintiff’s Opening Claim Construction Brief [Patent Local Rule 4-5(a)] 

 11/2/15: Defendant’s Responsive Claim Construction Brief [Patent Local Rule 4-5(b)] 

 11/9/15: Plaintiff’s Reply Claim Construction Brief [Patent Local Rule 4-5(c)] 

 11/16/15 at 10:00 a.m.: Claim Construction Tutorial 

 12/7/15 at 2:00 p.m.: Claim Construction Hearing [Patent Local Rule 4-6] 

 B. Additional Disputes 

 1. Limiting Apple’s Invalidity Theories 

 In addition to the foregoing agreed-upon dates, Longitude asks the Court to require Apple 

to identify four “invalidity theories” for each asserted claim, each based on a single anticipatory 

reference or unique combination of obviousness references, by July 2, 2015, the same day that the 

parties agree that Apple will identify no more than 15 prior art references per patent and no more 

than 56 total. Longitude contends that Apple has proposed similar limitations in other cases, but it 

does not appear that any court has required a defendant to limit itself to certain theories, as 

opposed to limiting the number of prior art references as is suggested in the Model Order, and 

certainly not so early in the case. In Apple v. Samsung, the court required both sides to reduce 

invalidity references/systems/combinations to 45 per side three days before the fact discovery 

cutoff, but did not adopt a proposal to limit invalidity theories more generally. The Court will not 

require Apple to limit itself to a specified number of “invalidity theories” on July 2, 2015, but may 

revisit this issue at a later date if the circumstances warrant it. 

 2. Identifying Representative Products

 Longitude asks the Court to require Apple to identify “representative products” by July 9, 

2015. In appropriate cases, courts use representative products to narrow cases where there are 

numerous related products creating identical or similar issues of infringement. See, e.g., Rambus 

v. Hynix, Case 05-cv-00334-RMW, D.I. 2803 (requesting letter briefs on the issue of identifying 

representative products); Apple v. Samsung, 12-cv-00630-LHK, D.I. 471 (“The Court strongly 

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encourages the parties to reach a stipulation on [representative products].”). Longitude contends that 

the accused products here are similar because they utilize a limited number of operating systems and 

flash memory management appears to be similar among the products. Apple counters that this is not 

an appropriate case for identifying representative products because the accused functionalities operate 

differently depending on the hardware, operating system, and flash translation layer used in a given 

product. The Court is awaiting further briefing from Apple on this issue and will issue a separate 

order relating to representative products after June 18, 2015. 

 3. Identifying Non-Infringement Theories

 In addition to a requirement that Apple identify representative products on July 9, 2015, 

Longitude also wants Apple to provide it with discovery regarding its non-infringement contentions, 

and specifically how each of the representative products differs for purposes of infringement (i.e., 

respond to Interrogatory No.1 requesting this information). Alternatively, if Apple argues that 

each of the accused products is unique, Longitude wants Apple to identify relevant distinctions. 

Apple agrees to produce this information, but argues that it should be required to respond to 

Interrogatory No. 1 much later in the case, and suggests 45 days after a claim construction order. 

The Court will not impose a deadline of July 9, 2015 for this discovery, but believes that it should 

be provided much sooner than Apple suggests. The parties are ordered to meet and confer and 

agree on a mutually agreeable date for this discovery. 

 4. Detailed Statement of Claim/Case Dispositive Nature of Claim 

 Construction

 The parties agree that a joint claim construction and prehearing statement pursuant to 

Local Rule 4-3 shall be filed on September 3, 2015. Apple wants that statement to include “a 

detailed statement as [sic] why each of the selected terms for construction are either claim and/or 

case dispositive.” Longitude argues that this is unnecessary because Local Rule 4-3 already 

requires “identification of the terms whose construction will be most significant to the resolution 

of the case up to a maximum of 10” and requires the parties to “identify any term among the 10 

whose construction will be case or claim dispositive” on the same date, September 3, 2015. Given 

the number of patents and claim terms at issue in this case, the parties should proceed through the 

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initial round of claim construction primarily if not exclusively with terms that are likely to be 

dispositive of patents or at least claim terms and therefore the Court agrees with Apple that 

additional detail should be required. 

 On September 3, 2015, the parties shall file their Patent Local Rule 4-3 Joint Claim 

Construction and Pre-Hearing Statement that: (1) identifies the terms whose construction will be 

most significant to the resolution of the case up to a maximum of ten; (2) of those ten, identify 

those whose construction is claim or case dispositive; and (3) for all terms, provide as detailed a 

statement as feasible as to why each of the terms selected for construction is either claim or case 

dispositive, or a statement that a particular term is not claim or case dispositive and as detailed a 

statement as feasible as to why it is still significant to the resolution of the case. 

 E. Post Claim Construction Schedule 

 The Court will not set dates beyond the claim construction hearing now, and will set a case 

management conference to set remaining dates after the Court issues its claim construction order. 

IT IS SO ORDERED. 

Dated: June 16, 2015 

________________________ 

ELIZABETH D. LAPORTE 

United States Magistrate Judge 

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