Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_03-cv-04739/USCOURTS-cand-4_03-cv-04739-10/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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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

HANK SPACONE, on behalf of and as

Trustee for the General Unsecured

Creditors' Liquidating Trust of At

Home Corporation, and on behalf of and

in the name of the At Home Liquidating

Trust of At Home Corporation,

Plaintiff,

v.

MICROSOFT CORPORATION,

Defendant/Counterclaim

Plaintiff, 

v.

HANK SPACONE, on behalf of and as

Trustee for the General Unsecured

Creditors' Liquidating Trust of At

Home Corporation, and on behalf of and

in the name of the At Home Liquidating

Trust of At Home Corporation, and

JACQUELYN CRAWFORD, as Trustee for the

At Home Liquidating Trust of At Home

Corporation,

Counterclaim Defendants.

 /

No. C 03-4739 CW

ORDER DENYING

PLAINTIFF'S

MOTION TO ALTER

OR AMEND JUDGMENT

AND GRANTING

DEFENDANT’S

REQUEST FOR

CLARIFICATION OF

MARCH 10, 2006

ORDER

Case 4:03-cv-04739-CW Document 260 Filed 06/07/06 Page 1 of 10
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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Plaintiff and Counterdefendant Hank Spacone, on behalf of and

as Trustee for the General Unsecured Creditors' Liquidating Trust

of At Home Corporation, and on behalf of and in the name of the At

Home Liquidating Trust of At Home Corporation, moves pursuant to

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e) to alter or amend the

judgment. Defendant and Counterclaimant Microsoft Corporation

opposes the motion and separately requests that the Court clarify

its March 10, 2006 order on the cross-motions for summary judgment.

The matter was submitted on the papers. Having considered all of

the papers filed by the parties and the evidence cited therein, the

Court denies Plaintiff’s motion to alter or amend the judgment and

grants Defendant’s request for clarification.

BACKGROUND

 On March 10, 2006, the Court granted Defendant’s motion for

summary judgment and judgment was entered. Specifically, the Court

granted Defendant summary judgment that its smart tags do not

literally infringe U.S. Patent No. 6,122,647 (the '647 patent) and

do not infringe claims 2, 8, 12 or 13 by equivalents. Although

there was a dispute of facts as to whether smart tags infringed

claims 1, 6 and 11 by an equivalent of the hyperlinks limitation,

the Court further granted summary judgment that claims 1, 6, and 11

were invalid as anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 5,815,830 (Anthony).

LEGAL STANDARD

There are four grounds upon which a Rule 59(e) motion to amend

or alter a judgement may be granted: 1) when the motion is

necessary to correct manifest errors of law or fact upon which the

judgment is based; 2) when the moving party presents newly

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discovered evidence; 3) when the motion is necessary to prevent

manifest injustice; or 4) where there is an intervening change in

controlling law. Turner v. Burlington Northern Santa Fe R. Co.,

338 F.3d 1058, 1063 (9th Cir. 2003). In ruling on a Rule 59(e)

motion, the district court has considerable discretion. Id.

DISCUSSION

I. Plaintiff’s Motion to Amend or Alter Judgment

Plaintiff contends that, in entering judgment, the Court

overlooked material evidence, which amounted to a clear error of

law or fact. As Defendant notes, Plaintiff does not address the

Court’s conclusion that claims 1, 6, and 11 are invalid. Instead,

Plaintiff requests that the Court vacate the judgment and enter a

new order denying Defendant’s motion for summary judgment of noninfringement of claims 2, 8, 12 and 13. According to Plaintiff,

the Court’s order granting summary judgment was premised on the

Court’s conclusion that Plaintiff failed to demonstrate the

existence of a triable issue regarding infringement of the ‘647

patent by failing to provide, or direct the Court to, certain

evidence which, in fact, Plaintiff did provide and point out. 

Plaintiff argues that he provided material evidence regarding:

(1) literal infringement with respect to hyperlinks;

(2) infringement with respect to topics; and (3) literal

infringement with respect to claim 8.

A. Hypertext Links

In granting summary judgment, the Court found that Plaintiff

did not meet his burden of providing evidence to dispute

Defendant’s contention that its smart tags lack hyperlinks as

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1

Plaintiff has broadly defined Smart Tag Functionality as

consisting of the smart tag features in Defendant’s Office and

Windows products, and the related software modules, programs and

tools that support its functionality. Plaintiff’s Motion for

Partial Summary Judgment, 2 n.1.

4

construed by the Court. Plaintiff contends that the Court

overlooked specific evidence identifying what, in smart tags

technology, is the alleged hypertext link. But the evidence

Plaintiff presents is the same evidence the Court has already

considered and rejected. In particular, the Court did not ignore

the XML file, even if the file was not expressly mentioned in its

order. 

As Defendant notes, what aspect of “Smart Tags Functionality”1

constitutes a hyperlink was a central issue, not overlooked. The

first question the Court asked Plaintiff’s counsel at the hearing

was “what in smart tags is the hypertext link if it’s not menu

links?” Instead of answering the question asked, Plaintiff’s

counsel responded, “I think the real issue in smart tags

functionality looking at it as a whole, and that’s something we try

to keep coming back to.” After the Court explained that patents

are not analyzed in such a fashion, Plaintiff’s counsel listed

various elements that, combined, are a hyperlink. The Court

considered the elements Plaintiff’s counsel listed, as well as

counsel’s arguments at the hearing and the arguments and evidence

presented in Plaintiff’s papers. 

B. Topic

Plaintiff argues that his theory of topics is supported by the

record and thus, in concluding that he failed to adduce any

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evidence that smart tags determine a “topic” associated with each

selected term, the Court overlooked specific evidence that he

presented. Again, the Court did not. 

As the Court noted in its order, Plaintiff, in his motion for

summary judgment, identified the words “Microsoft Corporation” as a

topic. In its opposition, Defendant noted that the words Microsoft

Corporation are not stored in the smart tag infrastructure. In his

reply, Plaintiff no longer argued that Microsoft Corporation was a

topic; instead, he asserted that the ‘647 patent teaches that

topics may be represented by a “topic ID,” such as “MSFT.” 

Plaintiff stated, “That is exactly what Smart Tag Functionality

does. Microsoft misses the point that a topic, while possibly

represented by words, can be represented in various manners, such

as by an identifier that can be cross referenced by the system to a

topic.” Plaintiff’s Reply In Support of Motion for Partial Summary

Judgment, 9:4-6. Citations are not omitted; Plaintiff provided no

evidence to support his assertion of what Smart Tag Functionality

does, or to identify the “topic” that is being cross-referenced by

an identifier. Plaintiff stated in his opening brief that MSFT is

a unique identifier for the topic Microsoft Corporation, but then

conceded in his reply that Microsoft Corporation is not stored as a

topic anywhere in smart tags. See also Soffer Dec. ¶ 80 (“MSFT is

a financial symbol that identifies the topic Microsoft Corporation,

and is thereby associated with the topic Microsoft Corporation and

related subtopics Microsoft Quote Data, Microsoft Company Report

and Microsoft News.”).

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Now, Plaintiff argues that a topic identifier, such as MSFT,

is literally the topic. Plaintiff contends that this is not a new

argument and is consistent with his position from the outset. 

Regardless, the evidence Plaintiff points to does not show that a

topic identifier is literally a topic. His expert, Stuart B.

Soffer, stated that terms, such as MSFT, “perform double duty:

(1) they are the terms for matching occurrence in the source

documents for the purpose of selecting terms in the source

document, and (2) they are individually used as the unique

identifiers of the topics, which in this example is the corporation

represented by each.” Soffer Dec., § 79. Mr. Soffer did not state

that the terms, like MSFT, perform triple duty: thirdly, being the

topic itself. Furthermore, in its order the Court concluded, “The

claim language requires topics not topic ID codes; topics and topic

ID codes are not synonymous.” Topics and topic identifiers are not

synonymous.

Plaintiff admits that he did not present his evidence on

topics specifically as supporting a doctrine of equivalents

argument because he believed (and continues to believe) that the

topic identifier is literally a topic and thus the ordinary meaning

of the claim term “topic” encompasses a topic ID. As Defendant

notes, Plaintiff’s subjective belief and reason for failing to

present such evidence are irrelevant. The Court did not overlook

evidence Plaintiff presented in his summary judgment papers.

C. Claim 8

In its order, the Court found that Plaintiff failed to provide

evidence that both the tagging module and the presentation module

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receive the user selected portion as required by claim 8. 

Plaintiff contends that he presented such evidence but it was

overlooked by the Court. He points to the supplemental declaration

of Mr. Soffer that stated, “I analyze and conclude that Smart Tags

Functionality, as a whole, operates to allow the user selected

portion to be received by both the tagging module and the

presentation module.” Soffer Supp. ¶ 3 (emphasis in original). 

The Court considered Mr. Soffer’s analysis and conclusion. As

noted above, however, in determining whether Defendant’s smart tags

infringe the ‘647 patent, what Smart Tag Functionality as whole

does or does not do is not the correct analysis. Although

Plaintiff disagrees with the Court’s conclusion that he did not

provide evidence that both the tagging module and the presentation

module receive the user selected portion, that conclusion was

reached considering the evidence presented by Plaintiff. 

II. Defendant’s Request for Clarification

Defendant’s motion for summary judgment discussed two prior

art references: Anthony and an article by Paul Thistlewaite,

Automatic Construction and Management of Large Open Webs, 33

Information Processing & Management, 161-73, published in March,

1997. In its opening papers, Defendant argued that both Anthony

and Thistlewaite anticipated claims 1, 2, 11, 12 and 13, but that

only Thistlewaite anticipated claim 6 because it expressly

disclosed the claim 6 feature of a menu of hypertext links, whereas

Anthony did not. Plaintiff responded that neither Anthony nor

Thistlewaite anticipated claim 6. He argued that Anthony did not

anticipate claims 1, 6, or 11 because it does not disclose the

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feature of a “user selected portion”; he did not argue that Anthony

does not disclose the menu feature of claim 6. In its surreply,

Defendant demonstrated that there was no genuine dispute that

Anthony disclosed the feature of a user selected portion and thus

concluded, “Claims 1, 6, and 11 are therefore invalid as

anticipated by Anthony.” Defendant’s Surreply Re Motions for

Summary Judgment, 12:22. 

As noted above, the Court held that claims 1, 6 and 11 were

invalid as anticipated by Anthony. Because those claims were

anticipated by Anthony, the Court did not address whether

Thistlewaite also anticipated those claims. 

Defendant now explains that it contends only that Thistlewaite

anticipated claim 6, and requests that the Court clarify that claim

6 is anticipated by Thistlewaite, not by Anthony. Plaintiff has

not responded to Defendant’s request to clarify; but, as noted

above, in its motion to alter or amend the judgment, it did not

address the Court’s conclusion that claims 1, 6, and 11 were

anticipated. The Court grants Defendant’s request to clarify its

order and now rules that claim 6 is anticipated by Thistlewaite.

As the Court stated in its order, Defendant's expert Dr. W.

Bruce Croft’s invalidity claim chart and expert report provide a

clear and convincing prima facie case of anticipation of claim 6 by

Thistlewaite. Plaintiff provided no evidence to show a dispute

with respect to claim 6. Instead, Plaintiff argued that

Thistlewaite was not invalidating art because it was not a single

prior art reference and because it was not enabling. The Court

rejected the first argument; it did not reach the second. 

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Defendant notes that Plaintiff failed to rebut the evidence

Defendant presented that Thistlewaite is enabling. The Court

agrees, and finds that Thistlewaite is enabling.

In his expert report, Dr. Croft stated that Thistlewaite,

along with other prior art references, would enable a person of

ordinary skill in the art to make and use the apparatus or method

disclosed. Croft Dec., Ex. B ¶ 15. As Defendant noted in its

surreply, while Plaintiff’s expert, David Klausner, opined that

three of Defendant’s prior art references were not enabling, Mr.

Klausner did not dispute Dr. Croft’s assertion that Thistlewaite is

enabling. Nor did Plaintiff point to any other evidence that

Thistlewaite was not enabling. The background of the ‘647 patent

itself provides that hypertext links and their manner of creation

were well-known in the prior art; there was nothing about

hyperlinks, or a menu of hyperlinks, which would have required

undue experimentation to implement. See Novo Nordisk Pharm., Inc.

v. Bio-Tech. General Corp., 424 F.3d 1347, 1355 (Fed. Cir.

2005)(“In order to anticipate, a prior art disclosure must also be

enabling, such that one of ordinary skill in the art could practice

the invention without undue experimentation.”). The Court

concludes that, on the record before it, there is no basis on which

a reasonable jury could conclude that Thistlewaite was not

enabling. Claim 6 is anticipated by Thistlewaite. 

CONCLUSION

In sum, Plaintiff fails to demonstrate that an order altering

or amending the judgment “is necessary to correct manifest errors

of law or fact upon which the judgment is based.” Turner, 338 F.3d

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at 1063. Plaintiff’s Motion to Alter or Amendment Judgment (Docket

No. 247) is DENIED. Defendant’s Request for Clarification of Order

Dated March 10, 2006 (Docket No. 246) is GRANTED. Claim 6 of the

‘647 patent is invalid as anticipated by Thistlewaite.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: 6/7/06 CLAUDIA WILKEN

United States District Judge

Case 4:03-cv-04739-CW Document 260 Filed 06/07/06 Page 10 of 10