Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-cv-06654/USCOURTS-cand-3_18-cv-06654-3/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 28:1338 Patent Infringement

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

XIAOHUA HUANG,

Plaintiff,

 v.

NEPHOS INC.,

Defendant. /

No. C 18-06654 WHA

ORDER ON MOTION 

TO STRIKE

INTRODUCTION

In this patent infringement action, accused infringer moves to strike pro se patent

owner’s infringement contentions, to dismiss the instant action with prejudice, and for

attorney’s fees. To the extent stated below, accused infringer’s motion is GRANTED.

STATEMENT

A prior order has set forth the background of this case (Dkt. No. 55). In brief, pro se

plaintiff Xiaohua Huang owns United States Patent Nos. 6,744,653 (“the ’653 patent”) and

6,999,331 (“the ’331 patent”), which patents generally involve ternary content addressable

memory (“TCAM”) technology used in the semiconductor chip industry. According to

plaintiff, the patents employ a TCAM design “using differential match line to achieve high

speed and lower power consumption” (Dkt. No. 65-9 at 11). Plaintiff accuses defendant’s chips

of infringing those patents (Compl. ¶¶ 1, 8, 11). 

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Since December 2018, plaintiff has been advised by defendant’s counsel multiple times

that his infringement contentions were non-compliant with the patent local rules. The Court has

twice warned plaintiff — including a prior order dated July 9 that struck his third set of

contentions for various deficiencies and offered him one more chance to amend — that failure

to serve proper contentions would likely result in dismissal of his action (Dkt. No. 55 at 9). 

Plaintiff timely served his fourth set of infringement contentions (Dkt. No. 59). According to

this new set of contentions, plaintiff accuses defendant’s “Aries MT3250 Family, Aries Hybrid

ToR Switch, Taurus Family NP8360 Series, Taurus ToR and Fabrics Switch” products of

infringing Claims 1, 5, 8, 12, 15, and 17 of the ’653 patent and Claims 1 and 9 of the ’331

patent (Dkt. No. 59-1 at 1, 7).

Defendant now moves to strike (for a second time) plaintiff’s latest amended

infringement contentions for failure to comply with Patent Local Rules 3-1(c)–(e), for dismissal

with prejudice, and for an award of attorney’s fees (Dkt. No. 65). This order follows full

briefing and oral argument. 

ANALYSIS

1. PATENT LOCAL RULE 3-1 NONCOMPLIANCE.

Defendant contends that plaintiff’s fourth set of infringement contentions are still

deficient under (1) Patent Local Rule 3-1(c) for failure to provide “chart[s] identifying

specifically where and how each limitation of each asserted claim is found within each Accused

Instrumentality”; (2) Patent Local Rule 3-1(d) for failure to identify “any direct infringement

and a description of the acts of the alleged indirect infringer that contribute to or are inducing

that direct infringement” for each asserted claim alleged to be indirectly infringed; and (3)

Patent Local Rule 3-1(e) for failure to demonstrate “[w]hether each limitation of each asserted

claim is alleged to be literally present or present under the doctrine of equivalents in the

Accused Instrumentality” (Dkt. No. 65 at 1–2). See Patent L.R. 3-1(c)–(e). This order agrees. 

“Patent Local Rule 3 requires patent disclosures early in a case and streamlines

discovery by replacing the series of interrogatories that parties would likely have propounded

without it.” Huawei Techs., Co, Ltd v. Samsung Elecs. Co, Ltd., 340 F. Supp. 3d 934, 945–46

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(N.D. Cal. 2018) (quoting ASUS Comput. Int’l v. Round Rock Research, LLC, No. C 12-02099

JST (NC), 2014 WL 1463609, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 11, 2014) (Magistrate Judge Nathanael

Cousins)). Patent Local Rule 3-1, which sets forth the requirements for disclosing asserted

claims and preliminary infringement contentions, “require[s] the party claiming infringement to

crystallize its theories of the case early in the litigation and to adhere to those theories once

disclosed.” Shared Memory Graphics LLC v. Apple, Inc., 812 F. Supp. 2d 1022, 1024 (N.D.

Cal. 2010) (quoting Bender v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., No. C 09-1149 MMC (EMC),

2010 WL 363341, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 1, 2010) (Judge Edward Chen)). Though a plaintiff

need not supply evidence of infringement, “the degree of specificity under Local Rule 3-1 must

be sufficient to provide reasonable notice to the defendant why the plaintiff believes it has a

reasonable chance of proving infringement.” Id. at 1025; Creagri, Inc. v. Pinnaclife Inc., LLC,

No. C 11-06635 LHK (PSG), 2012 WL 5389775, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 2, 2012) (Magistrate

Judge Paul Grewal).

A. Claim Chart Deficiencies.

Patent Local Rule 3-1(c) requires plaintiff to provide “[a] chart identifying specifically

where and how each limitation of each asserted claim is found within each Accused

Instrumentality.” 

This order finds that plaintiff’s fourth set of infringement contentions under Patent Local

Rule 3-1(c) are deficient for failure to provide the required limitation-by-limitation analysis. As

before, the claim charts here for both patents-in-suit are still mainly self-referential. That is,

they primarily consist of plaintiff’s opinion about how a claim limitation relates to a figure in

the specification. The chart for the first two limitations in Claim 1 of the ’331 patent illustrates

the problem as follows (Dkt. No. 65-9 at 16):

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Construing the contentions liberally, plaintiff merely opines for the first claim limitation that

it generally “read[s] on the ‘CAM cell’ symbol” in Figure 1B, which corresponding feature

exists somewhere in “the 14.8 Mbit TCAM design used in” the accused product. Plaintiff

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then punctuates the analysis with a link to defendants’ website, which link contains only highlevel information about the four accused products. Same goes for the second claim limitation

— amd . 

 Nowhere — not in the claim charts or elsewhere in the infringement contentions —

does plaintiff tie any specific feature of an accused product to the claim language. As

defendants point out, plaintiff bases his infringement contentions on the following general

features allegedly found within all four of defendants’ products: (1) “differential match line

sensing” (or “differential”); (2) “voltage swing” (or “swing”); (3) “five Megabits” (or

“Megabits” or “MB”); (4) “more than 1 Ghz” (or “Gigahertz” or “Ghz”); and (5) “1K x 160

bits” (Dkt. Nos. 65-9 at 3–4; 72 at 4). Yet the claim charts hardly mention any of those

features within the context of the accused products. Nor do they point to any useful website

or document, or give any meaningful analysis of defendant’s products as they specifically

relate to the claim limitations. 

We have been down this road before. A prior order dated July 9 struck plaintiff’s third

set of contentions (Dkt. No. 55). As relevant here, that order specifically noted that the thenclaim charts were deficient because they failed to cite a “single reference to defendant’s

documents or website” or give a “specific analysis of the accused products tying specific

features to the claim language” (id. at 3). Here, as with his prior infringement contentions,

plaintiff’s claim charts “merely describe the claims themselves and certain general features of

the accused products . . . with no serious attempt to explain how they read on anything

specifically in the accused product” (id. at 5). 

Plaintiff responds by again attacking defendant for allegedly bringing the instant

motion in bad faith in order to “delay the case and increase” his “cost to reply” and

defendant’s alleged concealment of its investors “to cheat [him], the Court, Amazon.com Inc.

and [the] US government” (Dkt. No. 70 at 1, 6–8). As to the actual merits, plaintiff argues

that his disclosure under Patent Local Rule 3-1(b) offers product information copied from

defendant’s website (id. at 8–10) and that his claim charts “summarized” how each of Figures

1B, 2E, 8B, 8C, 9A, and 9B found within both specifications of the patents-in-suit is “read

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by” the asserted claims (id. at 10). He again fixates on his prior meeting and email exchange

with an engineer from MediaTek (defendant’s predecessor company) in which defendant

allegedly disclosed certain features of all four accused products (ibid.). Plaintiff then

generally ties certain features to certain figures within the specifications. Specifically,

plaintiff’s own pitch of his claim charts is as follows (id. at 11):

The main idea is that: the ACL function of Aries MT3250 Family of

Nephos Inc. uses TCAM designed by MediaTek, the TCAM designed by

MediaTek uses and contains the content of FIG.1B, FIG.2E ,FIG.7,

8B,FIG.8C, FIG.9A and FIG.9B. of US patent 6744654 and 6999331 as

stated in 3-1(b) and 3-1(c), if claim 1 read any of FIG.1B, FIG.2E ,FIG.7,

8B,FIG.8C, FIG.9A and FIG.9B. of US patent 6744654 and 6999331, then

claim1 read the TCAM used in Aries MT3250 Family of Nephos Inc. So

the claim chart focus on explaining HOW the claim 1 of US patent 6999331

read FIG.1B, FIG.2E ,FIG.7, 8B,FIG.8C, FIG.9A and FIG.9B. of US patent

6999331 since the TCAM used in Aries MT3250 Family of Nephos Inc.

contains the content of FIG.2E ,FIG.7, 8B,FIG.8C, FIG.9A and FIG.9B. of

US patent 6999331, so claim1 read FIG.2E ,FIG.7, 8B,FIG.8C, FIG.9A and

FIG.9B. of US patent 6999331,then claim 1 read the TCAM used in the

Aries MT3250 Family of Nephos Inc, then the claim 1 read the Aries

MT3250 Family of Nephos Inc. The TCAM used in the Aries MT3250

Family of Nephos Inc. is WHERE.

But Patent Local Rule 3-1(c) requires him to “identify[] specifically where and how

each limitation of each asserted claim is found within each Accused Instrumentality.” Patent

L.R. 3-1(c) (emphasis added). To repeat, that means that plaintiff must specifically tie the

asserted claim language to some feature within the accused product. Plaintiff’s general

assertion that the claims (and the alleged corresponding figures in the specifications) again

fails to satisfy his “obligation to identify the particular claim components in each claim [and]

map those components onto the features of the allegedly infringing products.” Finjan, Inc. v.

Check Point Software Techs., Inc., No. C 18-02621 WHO, 2019 WL 955000, at *6 (N.D. Cal.

Feb. 27, 2019) (citing Shared Memory Graphics, 821 F. Supp. 2d at 1025).

B. Generic Indirect Infringement Theory.

The fourth set of infringement contentions also fail as to plaintiff’s allegation of

indirect infringement. Under Patent Local Rule 3-1(d), plaintiff must disclose for each claim

“any direct infringement and a description of the acts of the alleged indirect infringer that

contribute to or are inducing that direct infringement.” Plaintiff’s contentions, however,

merely states as follows (Dkt. No. 65-9 at 105):

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The claim 1, 5, 8,12,15 and 17 of US Patent No.6744653 and Claim 1 and 9

of US Patent No.6999331 are directly infringed by the Chips of Nephos Inc.

including Aries MT3250 Family, Aries Hybrid ToR Switch, Taurus Family

NP8360 Series, Taurus ToR and Fabrics Switch. Since the claims are

infringed by TCAM used in the chips, and the TCAM function are [sic]

always used by the Switches which using the chips ,so [sic] the chips of

Nephos Inc. induced the parties, such as Amazon, which using the Chips of

Nephos Inc. to infringe the US patent No. 6744653 and 6999331, which

contribute to or are inducing that indirect infringement.

A “general assertion of the elements of indirect infringement is plainly insufficient.” 

Blue Spike, LLC v. Adobe Sys., Inc., No. C 14-01647 YGR (JSC), 2015 WL 335842, at *7

(N.D. Cal. Jan. 26, 2015) (Magistrate Judge Jacqueline Corley) (citing France Telecom, S.A.

v. Marvell Semiconductor, Inc., No. C 12-04967 WHA (NC), 2013 WL 1878912, at *5 (N.D.

Cal. May 3, 2013) (Magistrate Judge Nathanael Cousins)). “[B]oilerplate language that

simply claims an accused infringer provided instructions on, advertised, or promoted the use

of an accused product, without describing which instructions, advertisements, or promotions

led to what infringing behavior, does not suffice under PLR 3-1(d).” Comcast Cable

Commc’ns, LLC v. OpenTV, Inc., No. C 16-06180 WHA, 2017 WL 2630088, at *5 (N.D. Cal.

June 19, 2017) (citing France Telecom, 2013 WL 1878912, at *5). 

Here, plaintiff includes Amazon as an example of an “induced party.” Otherwise, his

current disclosure under Patent Local Rule 3-1(d) remains the same as the disclosure

previously stricken in the order dated July 9 (see Dkt. No. 55 at 7). As before, this disclosure

offers only boilerplate language and fails to specify any act committed by defendant and thus

again fails to comply with Patent Local Rule 3-1(d). 

C. Placeholder Assertions re Doctrine of Equivalents. 

Plaintiff’s disclosures of infringement under the doctrine of equivalents also fail to

comply with Patent Local Rule 3-1(e), which requires plaintiff to disclose “[w]hether each

limitation of each asserted claim is alleged to be literally present or present under the doctrine

of equivalents.” He first discloses that “[e]ach limitation of the asserted claim[s] . . . are

literally infringed by the” accused products (Dkt. No. 65-9 at 105). He next provides that (id.

at 106 (emphasis added)):

Even the TCAM designed and used in Nephos Inc. in the future are [sic]

changed to some extension, it has to use the differential match line sensing

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because the chips now designed in Nephos are below 7nm process, the

voltage supply is less than 0.6voltage, without using the differential match

line sensing, the noise is comparable to the signal, which is completely not

working. To achieve high speed and low power, differential match line small

voltage swing sensing is the only choice. Use [of] the differential match line

small voltage swing sensing to achieve high speed and low power TCAM

result is using the same way (method )to achieve the same result with the US

patent 6744653 and 6999331. For the senior TCAM designer any variation

of differential match line sensing with small voltage swing to achieve low

power is obvious to what US patent 6744653 and 6999331 taught, so any

change on the design taught in US patent 6744653 and 6999331 fall[s] into

the infringement of Doctrine of equivalence [sic].

As defendant points out, this disclosure relates to defendants’ future products, not the

presently accused products (and thus implicitly concedes that the accused products only

literally infringe). Further, while the disclosure only makes a blanket assertion that if any

changes are made, the infringement must fall under the doctrine of equivalents, “[t]he Patent

Local Rules require a limitation-by-limitation analysis.” Rambus Inc. v. Hynix Semiconductor

Inc., No. C-05-00334 RMW, 2008 WL 5411564, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 29, 2008) (Judge

Ronald Whyte). Plaintiff’s current disclosure thus effectively amounts to improper generic

“placeholder” language and is thus insufficient under Patent Local Rule 3-1(e). See Finjan,

Inc. v. Proofpoint, Inc., No. C 13-05808 HSG, 2015 WL 1517920, at *10 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 2,

2015) (Judge Haywood Gilliam, Jr.). 

2. DISMISSAL WITH PREJUDICE.

Defendant again seeks to strike plaintiff’s deficient revised infringement contentions,

to dismiss the instant action with prejudice for plaintiff’s failure to prove his case, and an

award of attorney’s fees in connection with bringing both motions to strike as a sanction

against plaintiff for his conduct.

 “Striking a patentee’s infringement contentions is a severe sanction that should be

used sparingly and only for good cause.” Proofpoint, 2015 WL 1517920 at *12. The prior

order has already recounted the numerous chances plaintiff has been given to comply with

Patent Local Rule 3-1 and plaintiff’s “troubling” litigation history, both in this case and in

prior cases (Dkt. No. 55 at 2, 8–9, 12–13). 

In brief, since December 2018, defendant has advised plaintiff of the deficiencies in

his infringement contentions. In March 2019, the Court explicitly warned plaintiff that failure

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to comply with the patent local rules could result in the dismissal of his case (Dkt. No. 41 at

9:14–20). And, the prior order striking plaintiff’s third set of infringement contentions clearly

warned him that “the Court w[ould] likely dismiss the instant action possibly with prejudice

and may well consider a motion for attorney’s fees and costs by defendants” if plaintiff failed

to file and serve “proper infringement contentions” (Dkt. No. 55 at 13). After multiple

wasted chances (despite repeated guidance from the Court) and nearly a year since he filed the

instant action, plaintiff still has yet to “crystallize” his infringement theory. See Shared

Memory Graphics, 812 F. Supp. 2d at 1024. This drawn-out litigation history demonstrates

that plaintiff will not remedy the identified deficiencies going forward. Good cause thus

exists here. Accordingly, defendant’s motion to strike plaintiff’s infringement contentions is

GRANTED and the case is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE. In light of plaintiff’s pro se status

and the unlikelihood that plaintiff currently has sufficient funds, however, defendant’s request

for attorney’s fees is DENIED for now without prejudice to renewal after any appeal and

affirmance. 

CONCLUSION

To the foregoing extent, defendant’s motion to strike is GRANTED and the instant

action is DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE. Judgment will follow. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: November 12, 2019. 

WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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