Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_05-cv-00334/USCOURTS-cand-5_05-cv-00334-76/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

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING TESTIMONY OF BRIAN SHIRLEY

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF

E-filed: 2/20/08 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR INC., HYNIX

SEMICONDUCTOR AMERICA INC.,

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR U.K. LTD., and

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR

DEUTSCHLAND GmbH,

Plaintiffs,

v.

RAMBUS INC.,

Defendant.

No. CV-00-20905 RMW

ORDER REGARDING TESTIMONY OF

BRIAN SHIRLEY

[Re Docket No. 3248]

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1299 Filed 02/20/08 Page 1 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING TESTIMONY OF BRIAN SHIRLEY

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 2

 RAMBUS INC.,

Plaintiff,

v.

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR INC., HYNIX

SEMICONDUCTOR AMERICA INC.,

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR

MANUFACTURING AMERICA INC., 

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.,

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA,

INC., SAMSUNG SEMICONDUCTOR, INC.,

SAMSUNG AUSTIN SEMICONDUCTOR,

L.P., 

NANYA TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION,

NANYA TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION

U.S.A.,

Defendants.

No. C-05-00334 RMW

[Re Docket No 1287]

RAMBUS INC.,

Plaintiff,

v.

MICRON TECHNOLOGY, INC., and

MICRON SEMICONDUCTOR PRODUCTS,

INC.

Defendants.

No. C-06-00244 RMW

[Re Docket No. 896]

Rambus seeks to preclude Brian Shirley, a Micron representative, from testifying on two

subjects: (1) "industry lock-in"; and (2) a quantification of the alleged switching costs Micron would

incur were it to design around Rambus's alleged "feature set." Micron does not intend to have Mr.

Shirley testify as to "industry lock-in" or to switching costs as of today. Therefore, the only

outstanding dispute is whether Mr. Shirley can testify to his numerical estimate of Micron's

switching costs in 2000. The court has read the parties' briefs and heard their oral argument, and for

the following reasons, partially grants Rambus's motion.

Micron designated Mr. Shirley its 30(b)(6) witness regarding its contention that it was

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1299 Filed 02/20/08 Page 2 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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1 On the other hand, Mr. Shirley's deposition testimony demonstrates that he has the

personal knowledge and familiarity with Micron's business to discuss what factors affect the cost of

switching technologies, see Hamilton Decl., Ex. F at 131:23-133:7, and testimony regarding such cost

categories involved in switching designs appears to be properly within his percipient knowledge.

ORDER REGARDING TESTIMONY OF BRIAN SHIRLEY

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 3

locked-in to DDR, DDR2, DDR3 and DDR4 standards or any standards subsequent thereto. In his

30(b)(6) deposition, Mr. Shirley's testimony was very general: "I don't remember the exact dollar

figure. I remember that it was in the multiple hundreds of millions of dollars at minimum and from

our analysis was prohibitive enough that we came to the conclusion that we were locked into this

feature set." Hamilton Decl., Ex. G at 134:14-19. The dollar figure estimate that was based upon

the collective input of a group of Micron employees provided at a single meeting "sometime in the

early 2000s" that probably occurred in Idaho. Hamilton Decl., Ex. F at 131:3-11.

Micron advances two evidentiary bases for Mr. Shirley's quantification of Micron's estimated

switching costs. First, Micron argues that Mr. Shirley's estimate is permissible as a lay opinion. 

The court disagrees. There is an inadequate foundation for the "hundreds of millions" figure, even

as a lay opinion. While serving as Micron's representative, Mr. Shirley could not testify to any

analytical details and conceded that the "analysis" was the result of a group discussion. The

situation here is unlike that in cases where the court has allowed lay opinions based upon a witness'

own experience and percipient knowledge of their business. See, e.g., United States v. MuñozFranco, 487 F.3d 25 (1st Cir. 2007) (lay opinion testimony allowed under FRE 701 where based on

knowledge of a bank's banking practices that the witness acquired during his employment at the

bank). Here, Mr. Shirley's estimate is not based upon his own knowledge and experience with

Micron's business, but rather on the collective effort of a single group discussion at an

undocumented meeting. This cannot satisfy Rule 701(a)'s requirement that a lay opinion be

"rationally based on the perception of the witness."1

Even if Mr. Shirley's dollar estimate lacks any foundation or reasonable basis such that it

cannot be considered for its truth, he could recount the figure to explain Micron's state of mind in

the early 2000s when it allegedly chose not to try to switch away from using Rambus's technologies. 

While this use of his proffered testimony has some probative value, its relative probative value is

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1299 Filed 02/20/08 Page 3 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING TESTIMONY OF BRIAN SHIRLEY

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 4

minimal in light of Mr. Shirley's more grounded testimony regarding the types of costs involved in

switching technologies. In this context, the baseless "hundreds of millions of dollars" figure

becomes substantially more prejudicial than probative because of its potential for misleading the

jury. Accordingly, this use of the dollar figure evidence is improper under Rule 403.

The court will therefore allow Mr. Shirley to testify about the different types of work and

expenses that go into changing features in a memory product along the lines of his deposition

testimony, see Hamilton Decl., Ex. F at 131:23-133:7. He can also testify that the group who

discussed the matter concluded that these costs involved with switching away from using Rambus's

technologies would have been prohibitive. This testimony can be offered to show Micron's state of

mind and why it did not undertake a switch. However, he cannot give an estimate of the dollar

amount of switching costs as there is no adequate foundation for Mr. Shirley's lay opinion of the

figure and any reference to the figure in explaining Micron's state of mind is substantially more

prejudicial than probative.

DATED: 2/20/08 

RONALD M. WHYTE

United States District Judge

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1299 Filed 02/20/08 Page 4 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING TESTIMONY OF BRIAN SHIRLEY

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 5

Notice of this document has been electronically sent to:

Counsel for Rambus Inc., all actions Counsel for Hynix entities, C-00-20905 and C-05-00334

Burton Alexander

Gross

Burton.Gross@mto.com Allen Ruby ruby@allenrubylaw.com

Carolyn Hoecker

Luedtke

carolyn.luedtke@mto.com Belinda Martinez Vega bvega@omm.com

Catherine Rajwani crajwani@sidley.com Daniel J. Furniss djfurniss@townsend.com

Craig N. Tolliver ctolliver@mckoolsmith.com Geoffrey Hurndall Yost gyost@thelenreid.com

David C. Yang david.yang@mto.com Jordan Trent Jones jtjones@townsend.com

Douglas A. Cawley dcawley@mckoolsmith.com Joseph A. Greco jagreco@townsend.com

Erin C. Dougherty erin.dougherty@mto.com Kenneth Lee Nissly kennissly@thelenreid.com

Gregory P. Stone gregory.stone@mto.com Kenneth Ryan O'Rourke korourke@omm.com

Jennifer Lynn Polse jen.polse@mto.com Patrick Lynch plynch@omm.com

Keith Rhoderic Dhu

Hamilton, II

keith.hamilton@mto.com Susan Gregory

VanKeulen 

svankeulen@thelenreid.com

Kelly Max Klaus kelly.klaus@mto.com Theodore G. Brown, III tgbrown@townsend.com

Miriam Kim Miriam.Kim@mto.com Tomomi Katherine

Harkey 

tharkey@thelen.com

Peter A. Detre detrepa@mto.com Counsel for Micron entities, C-06-00244

Pierre J. Hubert phubert@mckoolsmith.com Aaron Bennett Craig aaroncraig@quinnemanuel.com

Rosemarie Theresa

Ring

rose.ring@mto.com David J. Ruderman davidruderman@quinnemanuel.

com

Scott L Cole scole@mckoolsmith.com Harold Avrum Barza halbarza@quinnemanuel.com

Scott W. Hejny shejny@sidley.com Jared Bobrow jared.bobrow@weil.com

Sean Eskovitz sean.eskovitz@mto.com John D Beynon john.beynon@weil.com

Steven McCall

Perry 

steven.perry@mto.com Leeron Kalay leeron.kalay@weil.com

Thomas N Tarnay ttarnay@sidley.com Linda Jane Brewer lindabrewer@quinnemanuel.co

m

William Hans

Baumgartner, Jr

wbaumgartner@sidley.com Rachael Lynn Ballard

McCracken

rachaelmccracken@quinnemanu

el.com

Robert Jason Becher robertbecher@quinnemanuel.co

m

Yonaton M Rosenzweig yonirosenzweig@quinnemanuel.

com

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1299 Filed 02/20/08 Page 5 of 6
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER REGARDING TESTIMONY OF BRIAN SHIRLEY

C-00-20905; C-05-00334; C-06-00244 RMW

TSF 6

Counsel for Nanya entities, C-05-00334 Counsel for Samsung entities, C-05-00334 and C-05-

02298

Chester Wren-Ming Day cday@orrick.com Ana Elena Kadala anita.kadala@weil.com

Craig R. Kaufman ckaufman@orrick.co

m

Claire Elise Goldstein claire.goldstein@weil.com

Glenn Michael Levy glevy@orrick.com David J. Healey david.healey@weil.com

Jan Ellen Ellard jellard@orrick.com Edward Robert Reines Edward.Reines@weil.com

Jason Sheffield Angell jangell@orrick.com Matthew D. Powers matthew.powers@weil.com

Kaiwen Tseng ktseng@orrick.com 

Mark Shean mshean@orrick.com

Robert E. Freitas rfreitas@orrick.com

Vickie L. Feeman vfeeman@orrick.com

Counsel for intervenor, Texas Instruments, Inc., C-05-00334

Kelli A. Crouch kcrouch@jonesday.com

Counsel for intervenor, United States Department of Justice, C-00-20905

Eugene S. Litvinoff eugene.litvinoff@usdoj.gov

May Lee Heye may.heye@usdoj.gov

Nathanael M. Cousins nat.cousins@usdoj.gov

Niall Edmund Lynch Niall.Lynch@USDOJ.GOV

Counsel for intervenor, Elpida Memory, Inc., C-00-20905 and C-05-00334

Eric R. Lamison elamison@kirkland.com

John J. Feldhaus jfeldhaus@foley.com

Counsel are responsible for distributing copies of this document to co-counsel that have not

registered for e-filing under the court's CM/ECF program in each action.

Dated: 2/20/08 TSF

Chambers of Judge Whyte

Case 5:05-cv-00334-RMW Document 1299 Filed 02/20/08 Page 6 of 6