Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01630/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01630-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 

---

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS, INC., 

A DELAWARE CORPORATION,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE, INC., A 

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION, ABBYY SOFTWARE, 

LTD., A CYPRUS CORPORATION, ABBYY 

PRODUCTION LLC, A RUSSIA CORPORATION,

LEXMARK INTERNATIONAL, INC., 

A DELAWARE CORPORATION,

Defendants-Cross-Appellants

______________________ 

2014-1629, 2014-1630

______________________ 

Appeals from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of California in No. 3:08-cv-02912-JSW, 

Judge Jeffrey S. White.

______________________ 

Decided: February 22, 2016

______________________ 

DEANNE MAYNARD, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Washington, DC, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by MARC A. HEARRON; MICHAEL ALLEN JACOBS, BROOKS 

M. BEARD, San Francisco, CA. 

 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 1 Filed: 02/22/2016
2 NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE

ERIK R. PUKNYS, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, 

Garrett & Dunner LLP, Palo Alto, CA, argued for defendants-cross-appellants. Also represented by NICHOLAS D.

PETRELLA, LILY LIM; DON O. BURLEY, DONALD ROBERT 

DUNNER, EDWARD ROBERT YOCHES, Washington, DC; 

Defendants-cross-appellants ABBYY USA Software

House, Inc., ABBYY Software Ltd., ABBYY Production 

LLC also represented by PETER J. KIRK, ABBYY USA 

Software House, Inc., Milpitas, CA; MEGAN OLESEK, 

Duane Morris LLP, Palo Alto, CA.

______________________ 

Before PROST, Chief Judge, DYK and CHEN, Circuit 

Judges.

PROST, Chief Judge. 

This case involves optical character recognition 

(“OCR”) technology. Nuance Communications Inc. (“Nuance”) sued ABBYY USA Software House, Inc., ABBYY 

Software, Ltd., ABBYY Production LLC, and Lexmark 

International, Inc. (collectively, “ABBYY”) in the United 

Stated District Court for the Northern District of California. Although Nuance asserted eight patents in its complaint, before trial Nuance narrowed its case and 

ultimately only tried three patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 

6,038,342 (“’342 patent”), 5,381,489 (“’489 patent”), and 

6,742,161 (“’161 patent”). The jury returned a verdict of 

non-infringement and judgment was entered against 

Nuance. Nuance appeals the judgment, arguing that a 

new trial on the ’342 patent is warranted because the 

district court improperly adopted a dictionary definition

for disputed claim limitations in the ’342 patent. Nuance 

also contends that it was denied due process when the 

district court entered final judgment against Nuance as to 

all of its patents, even those that Nuance chose not to 

assert at trial, and thus seeks remand for a second trial 

on the untried patents. For the reasons stated below, we 

affirm the district court’s rulings. 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 2 Filed: 02/22/2016
NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE 3

BACKGROUND

OCR technology is used to discern characters in digital images of text, like a scanned document, and to translate the text into a format where it can be searched or 

edited. OCR systems analyze characters in the scanned 

image using various techniques, including template 

matching, feature analysis, and context analysis. Template matching involves comparing a character in the 

digital image with templates of known characters. If 

there is no matching template, then feature analysis is 

used, which examines the characteristics of unknown 

characters to determine what they are. Sometimes template matching and feature analysis result in more than 

one possible character—such as a lowercase or uppercase 

“S”—in which case context analysis is used. Context 

analysis looks to the character’s special context and 

linguistic context to determine the correct character. 

I. THE ’342 PATENT AND ABBYY’S ACCUSED PRODUCT

The only dispute on the merits in this case concerns 

the ’342 patent. The ’342 patent is directed to OCR 

systems and methods. It describes two “recognition” 

processes—template matching and feature analysis. The 

novelty of the invention is that it uses the results of the 

feature analysis to build new templates that can later be 

used in the first step of template matching. ’342 patent 

col. 16 ll. 35–38. By using templates generated through 

feature analysis, the invention allows for template matching to recognize many more characters than it otherwise 

would be able to. The asserted claims of the ’342 patent 

recite that an unknown character is “identified” or “recognized” with or using a character-recognition process. For 

example, independent claim 4 recites:

4. In an optical recognition system having a feature analysis process for identifying an unknown 

character, said optical character recognition system for identifying characters in a medium, a 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 3 Filed: 02/22/2016
4 NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE

method for constructing a template library for use 

while processing said medium, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) identifying said unknown character with said 

feature analysis process;

(b) building a template for said unknown character subsequent to having identified said unknown 

character; and 

(c) storing said template in said template library. 

’342 patent col. 27 l. 62–col. 28 l. 6 (emphasis added). 

ABBYY’s accused product, FineReader, uses OCR 

technology. It begins by breaking down individual lines of 

text into fragments. Each fragment is then examined for 

division points, called “vertices” which are endpoints of 

“arcs.” Each arc corresponds to a “grapheme” image, 

which is a particular shape but not necessarily a character. FineReader examines each fragment and considers 

all combinations of grapheme images that could be combined to make a word. “Classifiers” then produce a list of 

“guesses” based on the combinations of grapheme images 

and provide a confidence value for each guess indicating 

how likely it is that the guess is correct. FineReader then 

performs a type of context analysis where it converts the 

grapheme guesses into characters and generates a list of 

possible words with associated confidence intervals. 

FineReader performs several more tests, including analyses based on linguistic information, to rank the word 

guesses. FineReader repeats that process for each fragment and after processing all of the fragments on a given 

line of text, it selects the best word candidates for each 

fragment.

II. PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Nuance originally asserted over 140 claims from eight 

patents against ABBYY. Three of those patents involved 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 4 Filed: 02/22/2016
NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE 5

OCR technology: U.S. Patent No. 5,261,009 (“’009 patent”), the ’342 patent, and the ’489 patent (collectively, 

“the OCR-patents”). The other five patents did not relate 

to OCR technology: U.S. Patent Nos. 5,131,153 (“’053 

patent”), 5,436,983 (“’983 patent”), 6,810,404 (“’404 patent”), 6,820,094 (“’094 patent”), and the ’161 patent 

(collectively, “the non-OCR patents”). The district court 

held a first Markman hearing on the three OCR patents. 

After issuing the first claim construction order, the district court asked the parties to propose case management 

scheduling for the rest of the case. It referred the case 

management conference to a special master who recommended, as Nuance proposed, that the court proceed with 

claim construction on the non-OCR patents and that the 

parties proceed through discovery, mediation, and then 

trial on both sets of patents. It further adopted Nuance’s 

proposal that Nuance would limit its total patents at trial 

to four, and the total claims to fifteen. The district court 

adopted the special master’s recommendations. 

Nuance selected the ’342 patent, the ’489 patent, the 

’009 patent, and the ’161 patent for expert discovery and 

trial, thus selecting both OCR and non-OCR patents. 

Ultimately, Nuance narrowed its case even further and 

only went to trial on seven claims from three patents (the 

’342 patent, the ’489 patent, and the ’161 patent). The 

jury found non-infringement and the district court entered final judgment against Nuance on August 26, 2013. 

Eight months later, in a motion by ABBYY to compel 

costs, Nuance responded that the costs award should be 

stayed until its remaining patents had been tried. Nuance indicated that the completed trial was only the 

“initial” trial and it had reserved its right to try the other 

patents in a subsequent trial. 

The district court rejected Nuance’s arguments and 

granted the motion to compel costs. The court noted that 

it entered judgment “[a]fter a full and fair trial on the 

issues selected by Nuance for its case-in-chief” and that 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 5 Filed: 02/22/2016
6 NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE

the final judgment “did not exempt any of Nuance’s 

causes of action or reserve judgment on any of Nuance’s 

patents that it chose not to pursue at trial.” J.A. 22. The 

court further stated that it “afforded Nuance the opportunity to pursue discovery and claim construction on all 

its patents” but that it “agreed with Nuance’s proposal 

that it would conduct a single trial” on a “manageable set” 

of patents. J.A. 22. The court also noted that Nuance 

failed to make any timely objections to the special master’s report which indicated that there would be a single 

trial on both the OCR and non-OCR patents. The court 

continued, “Although in the initial stages of this case, the 

Court kept the option open to Nuance to pursue discovery 

and claim construction on all of its originally asserted 

patents, there was never any mention that there would be 

serial trials.” J.A. 23. Indeed, the court noted that “according to its own representations, Nuance selected its 

‘best’ and ‘strongest’ patents for trial.” Id. 

Nuance now appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

DISCUSSION

We review a district court’s claim construction under 

the standard set forth in Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. 

v. Sandoz, Inc., 135 S.Ct. 831, 841 (2015). A district 

court’s case management decisions are reviewed for abuse 

of discretion, including legal and constitutional error. 

Nuance raises two issues on appeal. First, with respect to the ’342 patent, Nuance contends that a new trial 

is warranted because the district court failed to resolve 

the parties’ claim construction dispute before trial and 

because the district court adopted a dictionary definition 

contrary to the intrinsic evidence for disputed claim 

limitations. Second, Nuance argues that it was denied 

due process when the district court entered final judgment against Nuance as to all of its patents, including 

those that were not asserted at trial, and thus seeks

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 6 Filed: 02/22/2016
NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE 7

remand for a second trial on the untried patents. We 

address each of these issues in turn. 

I. CLAIM CONSTRUCTION

The parties originally disputed the constructions for a 

number of terms in the ’342 patent, including “identifying” and “recognizing.” They agreed, however, that the 

two terms were synonymous and thus should have the 

same construction. ABBYY initially proposed that “identifying” had a special meaning and referred only to identification by template matching and feature analysis. 

Nuance disagreed, explaining that “identifying” is “a 

simple word that is used every day and there is no indication that the inventors intended to use this term differently from its commonly understood meaning.” J.A. 519. 

Nuance further argued that there is “simply no restriction 

in the specification” warranting departure from the plain 

and ordinary meaning. J.A. 520. The district court 

agreed with Nuance and thus construed the term “identifying” to mean “identifying.” J.A. 9. 

The parties then took discovery and prepared for trial 

using the court’s construction. It became apparent during 

summary judgment briefing, however, that the parties 

disagreed as to the plain and ordinary meaning of “identifying,” or at least its application to the accused devices. 

Nuance’s expert asserted that one of FineReader’s classifiers, which produces a list of grapheme guesses, was 

identical to the claimed “feature analysis.” ABBYY’s 

expert disagreed, saying that the classifier does not 

“identify a character” but instead generates guesses of 

graphemes with associated confidence values. He further 

stated that FineReader does not identify a character until 

the very end of the process: it is only after context analysis and after the best word candidate is selected that 

FineReader identifies a particular character. Based on 

these competing understandings of what is meant to 

“identify” a character, Nuance asked the district court to 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 7 Filed: 02/22/2016
8 NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE

allow briefing on the meaning of “identify” so that the 

dispute could be resolved before trial. ABBYY opposed, 

saying the term had already been construed. 

The district court, after noting that it had already 

conducted two claim construction hearings in this case, 

said that it was “too late to do a construction” and that it 

was “unnecessary.” J.A. 1368. Instead, the court said it 

was going to rely on the “very experienced trial counsel 

here” and ordered the parties “to arrive at a mutually 

agreed upon—quote, unquote—‘ordinary meaning’ of the 

term ‘identify.’” Id. The court said that if the parties 

could not agree, it would “either use a Black’s Law Dictionary definition, or some other definition, or just tell the 

jury to use its ordinary meaning.” J.A. 1368–69. The 

parties could not agree. ABBYY, citing a dictionary 

definition, proposed “to establish the identity of” as the 

construction for “identify.” Nuance proposed “identifying 

(finally or tentatively),” or, alternatively proposed that 

court instruct the jury as follows: “‘Identifying’ has its 

plain and ordinary meaning. Many times an identified

character is still ambiguous.” J.A. 1436. In an order 

resolving pretrial submissions, the court, without further 

explanation, stated that it “adopts the plain and ordinary 

meaning of the terms ‘identifying’ and ‘recognizing’ as the 

same: ‘to establish the identity of.’” J.A. 16. The court 

instructed the jury accordingly. 

On appeal, Nuance maintains that the district court 

failed to resolve the parties’ claim construction dispute 

before trial in violation of O2 Micro International Ltd. v. 

Beyond Innovation Technology Co., 521 F.3d 1351 (Fed. 

Cir. 2008). We disagree. At the Markman hearing, the 

district court found in Nuance’s favor by adopting the 

plain and ordinary meaning of the term “identifying.” 

The fact that shortly before trial Nuance became dissatisfied with its own proposed construction and sought a new 

one does not give rise to an O2 Micro violation. See 

Akamai Techs., Inc. v. Limelight Networks, Inc., 805 F.3d 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 8 Filed: 02/22/2016
NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE 9

1368, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (finding no O2 Micro error 

where “the parties agreed in the stipulation as to both the 

meaning and the scope of the term during claim construction” and concluding that the defendant could not “argue 

at the jury instruction stage . . . that the construction was 

somehow too broad”). 

As described above, Nuance initially proposed the use 

of plain and ordinary meaning for “identifying” because it 

contended that the intrinsic evidence provided “no indication that the inventors intended to use this term differently from its commonly understood meaning.” J.A. 519. 

The district court considered the intrinsic evidence and 

agreed that the disputed terms should be given their 

plain and ordinary meaning. J.A. 9 (stating that “the 

term identifying appears through portions of the patents 

that do not allude to the specific processing and may be 

analyzed according to any one of a number of techniques” 

and thus construing the term “‘identifying to mean: 

‘identifying’”). Essentially, after the district court adopted 

Nuance’s proposal, Nuance reversed course and tried to 

get a new construction of disputed terms shortly before

trial, which the district court properly denied given the 

parties’ earlier agreement and the lack of any good cause 

for revisiting the claim construction. See Akamai, 805 

F.3d at 1376; O2 Micro Int’l Ltd. v. Monolithic Power Sys., 

Inc., 467 F.3d 1355, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2006). 

Nuance further contends that the district court erred 

in adopting a dictionary definition for the disputed terms 

that it says conflicts with the intrinsic evidence. But

Nuance has shown no harm justifying a new trial. Nuance points to various portions of the specification that 

indicate that “identifying” includes ambiguous identifications. In other words, Nuance argues that the term 

“identify” does not mean that the recognition process 

must identify one final character; instead, “identify” also 

encompasses narrowing the possible choices to a class of 

characters for further analysis. The district court’s conCase: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 9 Filed: 02/22/2016
10 NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE

struction is not in conflict with Nuance’s proposal. One 

could “establish the identity of” a single character or a 

class of characters. The operative words in the claims, 

then, are not “identifying” or “recognizing,” but instead 

are the object of those words—what is being identified or 

recognized. And that is exactly what the parties argued 

over at trial—Nuance contended that ABBYY’s software 

satisfies the “identifying an unknown character” limitation when its recognition process picks out a class of 

characters, while ABBYY presented evidence to the 

contrary. The district court did nothing to limit Nuance’s 

ability to present its evidence on this issue, and its instruction to the jury did not prevent the jury from fully 

considering each party’s position. After weighing the 

evidence, the jury agreed with ABBYY. Thus, even if the 

district court did err in adopting a dictionary definition 

for the disputed terms, Nuance is not entitled to a new 

trial because it is clear that “correction of the errors in 

[the] jury instruction on claim construction would not 

have changed the result, given the evidence presented.” 

Teleflex Inc. v. Ficosa N. Am. Corp., 299 F.3d 1313, 1328 

(Fed. Cir. 2002).1

II. DUE PROCESS

Nuance also argues that the district court violated its 

due process rights by entering judgment against it on all 

of its patents, even those that were not tried before the 

jury. ABBYY responds that there is no due process violation because Nuance voluntarily narrowed the case to its 

best patents and is now simply trying to get a second bite 

at the apple since it lost at trial. Although clearer guidance from the district court as to the consequences of 

Nuance’s decision to narrow the case might have been 

 

1 Because we affirm the district court’s claim construction, we do not reach ABBYY’s conditional crossappeal. 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 10 Filed: 02/22/2016
NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE 11

preferable, ultimately the responsibility was on Nuance to

timely notify the district court as to any objection to the 

court’s procedures. Because it did not do so, and instead 

made the tactical litigation decision to move forward only 

on a subset of patents without contemporaneous objection, 

Nuance is not entitled to another trial on the remaining 

patents. 

The course of dealings below indicates that, from the 

outset, Nuance only intended to have a single trial on a 

subset of patents that would be representative of all 

asserted patents. For example, Nuance consistently 

opposed multiple trials in its case management conference statements. See J.A. 5358 (opposing defendants’ 

proposal to sever the action in two because it would 

“unnecessarily consume additional judicial resources, 

including multiple separate trials involving the same 

parties, the same products and the same witnesses”); J.A. 

7095 (same); J.A. 7114 (same). Indeed, after the district 

court decided to hold two Markman hearings—one on the 

OCR patents and a second one on the non-OCR patents—

Nuance reiterated its concern about multiple trials: 

My concern is that having multiple trials could be 

very expensive. I would think that we could have 

a Markman process, maybe have a subsequent 

Markman process and, perhaps, by then do summary judgments or whatever, we get to a manageable set for one trial. 

J.A. 475–76. Moreover, in the back-and-forth with the 

district court regarding a case management plan, Nuance’s counsel stated that, although it expected to proceed 

with Markman hearings on all of its patents, it only 

intended to have a single trial on a limited number of its 

“best” patents:

But the reality of it is . . . if we have good time 

limits on us and we’re going to focus on what’s 

important at trial, the most I [have] ever gone to

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 11 Filed: 02/22/2016
12 NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE

trial with are three patents. . . . So . . . although, 

we believe, we have good infringement claims on 

all this, you hope to focus so you don’t have multiple trials. You hope to go ahead and have one trial on our best patents, go forward and that would 

hopefully take care of everything. We are not 

suggesting that we believe we’re willing to withdraw these patents from the case, but because 

we’re trying to focus this case down to something 

that’s manageable for Markman and something 

that’s manageable at trial, those are two different 

issues. 

J.A. 419. Indeed, Nuance’s counsel’s main concern was 

not whether the trial would be limited to a subset of 

patents, but who would make that decision—Nuance or 

ABBYY:

If we’re forced to go forward on a sub-set of patents we don’t view to be the strongest ones, our 

incentive is to continue to litigate after that. Like 

I said, I’ve been in a couple of these cases, the 

thought is in narrowing the case to be manageable 

for trial, you need to allow the plaintiff to effectively go on what they believe to be their strongest 

patents. If you do that and either win or lose that 

will typically resolve the whole dispute. 

J.A. 421; see also id. at 420 (“We’d like to have our day in 

court on all . . . patents. That’s not a reality. We’re going 

to try to set up a plan, we’re going to come up with representative claims.”). 

Consequently, Nuance elected on its own, without 

instruction from the court, to “move forward” on six 

patents with “no more than 24 representative claims.” 

J.A. 402–04. Nuance also asked for flexibility in substituting different representative claims later in the case, 

and, indeed, Nuance did later substitute two of its previously selected patents for the ’489 and ’009 patents. In 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 12 Filed: 02/22/2016
NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE 13

fact, in response to the court’s order to the parties to 

provide proposals on case management, Nuance further 

voluntarily narrowed its case to four patents and fifteen 

claims. Nuance stated in its proposed schedule that this 

“should further reduce the issues for the parties and the 

court following fact discovery if mediation is unsuccessful 

in resolving the case.” J.A. 665. The special master, 

assigned by the district court to handle the remainder of 

the case management procedure, agreed with Nuance’s 

proposal:

[T]he Special Master recommends all parties proceed through discovery, mediation, and then trial 

on both the [OCR patents] and the [non-OCR patents]. Before beginning expert discovery, however, Plaintiff will limit the total patents to 4 and 

the total claims to 15 out of those 4 patents. 

J.A. 691. The reference to “proceed[ing]” to trial covered 

all patents in the case, and clearly contemplated reducing 

the number to four patents at trial. There was no reference to a second trial. Indeed, nowhere in the special 

master’s recommendations—which the district court 

adopted in full—was a suggestion that there would be 

more than one trial. To the contrary, the special master’s 

recommendation resolved the dispute over multiple trials 

and concluded that a single trial on a subset of representative patents was warranted. Nuance did not object 

to the special master’s recommendations—which, of 

course, is not surprising, given that Nuance itself proposed the single-trial procedure—nor did it clarify that it 

intended to seek a second trial on the unselected patents. 

And ultimately, Nuance did not utilize its full allotment—

it went to trial on fewer than half of the fifteen claims 

that it could have and on only three patents instead of 

four. 

Nuance argues that it never abandoned its unselected 

patents or stipulated that the judgment on the selected 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 13 Filed: 02/22/2016
14 NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE

patents would apply to all of its patents. For support, it 

points to a number of statements it made before the 

district court regarding its right and intention to try all of 

its patents. See, e.g., J.A. 419–20 (Nuance’s counsel 

stating that he was putting some patents “on the side 

burner for now” and that those patents would not be “in 

the first trial”); id. at 421 (Nuance’s counsel warning the 

court that if ABBYY forced Nuance to move forward on 

only a subset of its patents, then that could result in “two 

trials”); id. at 666 (Nuance stating in a joint casemanagement report that, “[i]f the case is unable to be 

resolved before trial, it is only fair that Nuance—not any 

of the Defendants—be able to select the patents for the 

first (and hopefully only) trial in this case”). Nuance 

made those statements, however, well before the district 

court adopted the single-trial procedure proposed by 

Nuance and recommended by the special master. Indeed, 

those statements were made in the context of moving 

forward on all patents for Markman, not trial. And that 

is exactly what the district court did: it allowed Nuance to 

select terms from all of its patents for claim construction, 

from which Nuance—not ABBYY—then selected its “best” 

and “strongest” patents for a single trial. 

Nuance further contends that it expressly reserved its 

rights as to all patents, including those that were not 

selected for trial. Nuance points to its submission to the 

district court regarding its selection of patents for trial, in 

which Nuance stated that it would “postpone resolution of 

its infringement case” as to the unselected patents and 

that it “reserves its rights to reassert them against 

ABBYY and/or Lexmark at a later time in this suit or a 

future suit(s).” J.A. 727. But such a boilerplate reservation of rights is insufficient to overcome the clear recommendation from the special master for one trial—to which 

Nuance did not object—and the significant record evidence indicating Nuance’s intention to have a single trial 

on a subset of its best patents. 

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 14 Filed: 02/22/2016
NUANCE COMMUNICATIONS v. ABBYY USA SOFTWARE HOUSE 15

Finally, Nuance relies on In re Katz Interactive Call 

Processing Patent Litigation, 639 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 

2011) to support its position. In that case, we approved a 

district court’s order limiting the number of patent claims 

that the patentee could assert at trial where the patentee 

was given the opportunity assert additional claims beyond 

the limit by showing that they raised unique legal issues. 

Id. at 1311–12. Because the patentee did not make such a 

showing, we concluded that there was no due process 

violation when the district court entered final judgment 

as to all patents and claims, even those that were not 

selected for trial. Id. We recognized, however, that had 

the patentee shown the district court that the excluded 

claims presented unique legal issues, these claims’ exclusion could violate due process. Id. at 1312–13. 

Nuance contends that, here, all parties agree that the 

unselected patents raised unique infringement questions, 

and thus the district court erred in not allowing Nuance 

to try all of its patents. That is not enough. In order to 

merit a reversal, Nuance would need to show that it acted 

below to protect its due process rights. The record below 

shows that as the district court winnowed the case, Nuance made no motion, objection, or assertion otherwise 

that any limits on the number of claims or patents it 

could assert deprived it of any due process rights to 

adjudication on each unique legal issue its operative 

complaint presented. Instead, the record shows that 

Nuance actively participated in structuring the winnowing process and never objected until it had already lost at 

trial. There has therefore been no due process violation 

and the district court properly found that Nuance was not 

entitled to a second trial on the unselected patents. 

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district 

court’s rulings. 

AFFIRMED

Case: 14-1630 Document: 3-2 Page: 15 Filed: 02/22/2016