Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_14-cv-01622/USCOURTS-cand-4_14-cv-01622-12/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 CALIFORNIA

OPENTV, INC., et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

APPLE, INC.,

Defendant.

Case No. 14-cv-01622-HSG 

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND 

DENYING IN PART APPLE'S MOTION 

TO DISMISS THIRD AMENDED 

COMPLAINT

Re: Dkt. No. 97

Defendant Apple, Inc. (“Apple”) moves to dismiss Plaintiffs OpenTV, Inc.’s and 

Nagravision, SA’s (“OpenTV”) Third Amended Complaint (“TAC”). Apple argues that all of 

OpenTV’s patent infringement claims related to U.S. Patent No. 5,689,799 (“the ’799 Patent”) are 

invalid because the ’799 Patent’s claims are drawn to patent-ineligible subject matter. Apple also 

argues that OpenTV has failed to state a claim for willful infringement as to all five of OpenTV’s 

asserted patents. For the reasons explained below, the Court GRANTS the motion as to the ’799 

Patent infringement claims and DENIES the motion as to the willful infringement claims.

I. BACKGROUND

OpenTV alleges that Apple infringes five patents related generally to “the fields of access, 

selection, control, security, and delivery of digital content . . . over broadband networks to 

connected devices.” TAC ¶ 46. OpenTV further alleges that Apple willfully infringed all five 

patents. See TAC ¶¶ 61, 70, 79, 89, 99.

The ’799 Patent is titled, “Method and Apparatus for Routing Confidential Information.” 

See ’799 Patent. In the specification, the invention is summarized as “a method and apparatus 

[that] allows information including confidential information to be communicated to a proper 

vendor via an interactive information system without requiring the user to send confidential 

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information over unsecure communication lines.” Id. 1:66-2:3. According to the specification, 

the “interactive information system” uses “identifiers” to code a variety of “user,” “vendor,” and 

“application” information so that the information need not be directly transmitted between user 

and vendor via unsecure communication lines. Id. 2:4-10.

Claims 1-12 of the ’799 Patent are at issue. Claims 1 and 3 are independent system and 

method claims, respectively. Claim 1 recites:

1. An [sic] system for routing confidential user information to a 

vendor comprising:

a provider component for broadcasting an application identifier to at 

least one reception component;

a reception component for storing at least one user identifier, 

receiving and storing the application identifier, assembling user 

response information, and transmitting to a response collector the 

application identifier received and the user response information 

assembled; and

a response collector component for storing the application identifier 

and vendor routing information, associating the application 

identifier with the vendor routing information, receiving the 

application identifier and user response information from the 

reception component, and transmitting the user response information 

to the vendor associated with the application identifier received. 

Claim 2 depends on claim 1, and requires the system components to also transmit, store, 

associate, and receive “at least one user identifier.” 

Claim 3 recites: 

3. A method of routing confidential user information to a supplier 

comprising:

storing an application identifier and vendor routing information;

associating the vendor routing information with the application 

identifier;

receiving an application identifier and user response information; 

and

transmitting at least a portion of the user response information 

received responsive to the vendor routing information associated 

with the application identifier received.

Dependent claims 4-12 recite additional method steps related to the transmission and 

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verification of information, including “user identifiers” and “other user information.” Claims 7-12 

further specify that the information be received “using an unsecure facility.”

Apple argues that 1) the ’799 Patent is invalid as a matter of law under Section 101 

because it claims an abstract idea, which is ineligible subject matter; and 2) OpenTV fails to allege 

sufficient facts to state claims for willful infringement of all of the asserted patents. Apple asks 

this Court to dismiss OpenTV’s infringement claims related to the ’799 Patent and willful 

infringement claims as to all five patents.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Legal Standard

Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), a district court must dismiss a complaint 

if it fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. To survive a Rule 12(b)(6) motion to 

dismiss, the plaintiff must allege “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its 

face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 (2007). This “facial plausibility” standard 

requires the plaintiff to allege facts that add up to “more than a sheer possibility that a defendant 

has acted unlawfully.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009). Although courts do not 

require “heightened fact pleading of specifics,” Twombly, 550 U.S. at 570, a plaintiff must provide 

“more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of action 

will not do,” id. at 555. The plaintiff must allege facts sufficient to “raise a right to relief above 

the speculative level.” Id.

The issue of invalidity under Section 101 presents a question of law. See DDR Holdings, 

LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1255 (Fed. Cir. 2014). In line with the Federal Circuit 

and several other courts in this district, the Court thus finds that this Motion can be resolved on the 

pleadings prior to formal claim construction. See Content Extraction & Transmission LLC v. 

Wells Fargo Bank, 776 F.3d 1343, 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (affirming grant of motion to dismiss 

prior to formal claim construction); Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 772 F.3d 709, 714, 717 (Fed. 

Cir. 2014) (same); Ultramercial, 772 F.3d at 717 (Mayer, J., concurring) (“[W]hether the claims 

meet the demands of 35 U.S.C. § 101 is a threshold question, one that must be addressed at the 

outset of litigation.”); Cogent Med., Inc. v. Elsevier, Inc., 2014 WL 4966326, at *3 (N.D. Cal. 

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Sept. 30, 2014) (granting motion to dismiss prior to formal claim construction); Open Text S.A. v. 

Alfresco Software LTD, 2014 WL 4684429, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 19, 2014) (same); Gametek 

LLC v. Zynga, Inc., 2014 WL 1665090, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 25, 2014) (granting motion for 

judgment on the pleadings prior to formal claim construction); Cardpool, Inc. v. Plastic Jungle, 

Inc., 2013 WL 245026, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 22, 2013) (granting motion to dismiss prior to formal 

claim construction); Internet Patents Corp. v. Gen. Auto. Ins. Servs., 29 F. Supp. 3d 1264, 1268-69 

(N.D. Cal. 2013) (same); OIP Techs. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 2012 WL 3985118, at *5 (N.D. Cal. 

Sept. 11, 2012) (same).

OpenTV argues that “[t]he standard of proof to establish the invalidity of a patent under 35 

U.S.C. § 101 is ‘clear and convincing evidence.’” Opp. at 8. But the Federal Circuit has made it 

clear that “while a presumption of validity attaches in many contexts, no equivalent presumption 

of eligibility applies in the section 101 calculus.” Ultramercial, 772 F.3d at 721 (Mayer, J., 

concurring) (explaining that “[a]lthough the Supreme Court has taken up several section 101 cases 

in recent years, it has never mentioned—much less applied—any presumption of eligibility”). 

Moreover, neither the Supreme Court in Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l (the Supreme Court’s most 

recent decision regarding patentable subject matter), nor the Federal Circuit in cases applying 

Alice to decide section 101 validity issues, have mentioned the “clear and convincing evidence”

standard. Alice Corp., 134 S. Ct. 2347 (2014); Ultramercial, 772 F.3d 709; buySAFE, Inc. v. 

Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350 (Fed. Cir. 2014); Cyberfone Sys. v. CNN Interactive Grp., Inc., 558 

Fed. Appx. 988 (Fed Cir. 2014); DDR Holdings, LLC, 773 F.3d 1245.

Accordingly, the Court will apply the Rule 12(b)(6) standard articulated above. The 

parties have filed their proposed claim constructions and fully briefed any disputes related to the 

’799 Patent claims. For the purposes of deciding this Motion, the Court adopts OpenTV’s 

proposed construction of the ’799 Patent claims and will interpret the claims in the light most 

favorable to OpenTV.1 

 

1

Specifically, the Court will give all of the ’799 Patent claim terms their “[p]lain and ordinary 

meaning,” except for the term “unsecure facility,” which the Court will construe as “unsecure

communication lines.” Dkt. 95, Attachment A. Furthermore, the Court will not construe the 

preambles of claims 1 and 3 as limiting. Id.

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B. Section 101 Patent-Eligible Subject Matter

Section 101 of the Patent Act describes the types of inventions that are eligible for patent 

protection. Under Section 101, the scope of patentable subject matter encompasses “any new and 

useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful 

improvement thereof.” 35 U.S.C. § 101. It is well settled that laws of nature, natural phenomena, 

and abstract ideas are excluded from the universe of patentable subject matter. See Alice Corp., 

134 S. Ct. at 2354. These categories are not patent-eligible because “they are the basic tools of 

scientific and technological work,” which are “free to all men and reserved exclusively to none.” 

Mayo Collaborative Svcs. v. Prometheus Labs., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1293 (2012) (citations omitted). 

Allowing patent claims for laws of nature, natural phenomena, and abstract ideas would “tend to 

impede innovation more than it would tend to promote it, thereby thwarting the primary object of 

the patent laws.” Id. at 1293. However, the Supreme Court has also recognized the need to “tread 

carefully in construing this exclusionary principle, lest it swallow all of patent law.” Alice Corp., 

134 S. Ct. at 2354.

In Alice, the Supreme Court articulated the two-part test that courts must use to determine 

whether a claim’s subject matter is patent-eligible. First, a court “determine[s] whether the claims 

at issue are directed to one of those patent-ineligible concepts.” Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 2355. If 

they are, the Court then “consider[s] the elements of each claim both individually and as an 

ordered combination” to determine whether the claim contains an “inventive concept sufficient to 

ensure that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the natural law 

itself.” Id.

i. The ’799 Patent Method Claims Are Drawn To An Abstract Idea

Under Alice, the Court must first determine whether the ’799 Patent claims are directed to 

a patent-ineligible concept. The Court finds that the ’799 Patent claims are directed to the abstract 

idea of compiling, organizing, and transmitting information, using identification codes as 

shorthand for that information. See Content Extraction, 776 F.3d at 1347 (affirming grant of 

motion to dismiss and holding that “[t]he concept of data collection, recognition, and storage is 

undisputedly well-known”); Cyberfone Sys., 558 Fed. Appx. at 992 (holding that the “well-known 

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concept” of “using categories to organize, store, and transmit information” is not patent-eligible); 

Cogent Med., 2014 WL 4966326, at *4 (finding that claims were directed to “the abstract idea of 

maintaining and searching a library of information”). The limitations that such information be 

confidential, verified, or received via unsecure communications lines do nothing to render the idea 

concrete or tangible. On their face, the claims—which describe the “broadcasting,” “storing,” 

“assembling,” “associating,” “receiving,” and “transmitting” of various identification codes—are

directed to an “abstraction—an idea, having no particular concrete or tangible form.” 

Ultramercial, 772 F.3d at 715.

When analyzing whether a claim is directed to an abstract idea, some courts ask whether 

the claims’ steps “can be performed in the human mind, or by a human using a pen and paper.” 

CyberSource Corp. v. Retail Decisions, Inc., 654 F.3d 1366, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2011). The “pen and 

paper test” confirms that the ’790 Patent claims are drawn to an abstract idea. Like the claims at 

issue in CyberSource, claims 3-12 of the ’799 Patent describe a method that can be performed 

entirely in the human mind. Id. at 1373. Using a pen, paper, and her own brain, a person could 

write down a list of products, corresponding product codes, and vendor contact information (step 

1), organize those codes by vendor (step 2), receive an order from a user containing a product code 

and quantity of the product desired (step 3), and transmit that order by matching the product code 

to the vendor contact information using the aforementioned list (step 4). The fact that method 

claims 3-12 could be accomplished without modern technology is indicative that they “are the 

types of methods that embody the ‘basic tools of scientific and technological work’ that are free to 

all men and reserved exclusively to none,” and therefore comprise a non-patent-eligible abstract 

idea. Id. (explaining that “[s]uch a method that can be performed by human thought alone is 

merely an abstract idea and is not patent-eligible under § 101”) (citation omitted).

OpenTV argues that the pen and paper test does not doom the method claims, because “[a] 

person having ordinary skill in the art in the mid-1990s readily understood the meaning of claim 

terms such as ‘storing,’ ‘routing,’ and ‘transmitting,’ as actions that could not be performed using 

pen and paper” and which “require[d] a computer operation.” Opp. at 18. Even accepting 

OpenTV’s premise as true, it is well settled that “a claim directed to an abstract idea does not 

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move into section 101 eligibility territory by ‘merely requir[ing] generic computer 

implementation.’” buySAFE, 765 F.3d at 1354 (quoting Alice Corp., 134 S. Ct. at 2357) 

(affirming grant of motion for judgment on the pleadings). The pen-and-paper test does not 

require described electronic components to literally exist on paper: instead, it is an analytical tool 

to test whether the underlying concept described in the claims is abstract, and thus not patenteligible. See Planet Bingo, LLC v. CKGS LLC, 576 Fed. Appx. 1005, 1006-07 (Fed. Cir. 2014)

(applying pen and paper test to claims involving “computer-aided . . . systems”); Loyalty 

Conversion Sys. Corp. v. Am. Airlines, Inc., 2014 WL 4364848, at *2, *10 (E.D. Tex. Sept. 2, 

2014) (applying pen and paper test to claims involving a “computer program product”).

OpenTV further argues that the ’799 Patent is not directed to an abstract idea because it 

describes “a specific solution to overcome a technological problem that arose in the realm of 

electronic communications for interactive information systems, such as interactive television.” 

Opp. at 12. At the March 19, 2015 hearing, OpenTV further argued that the ’799 Patent describes 

systems and methods to solve the problem of needing to transfer confidential information over 

unsecure communication lines in the context of interactive television networks, whether to prevent 

against the “malicious eavesdropper” or to preserve anonymity. See Hearing Tr. at 15-16. 

The Court is not persuaded. The problem of how to transmit, receive, store, and organize 

confidential information deriving from multiple sources is not a creature of the Internet age: 

solutions to this problem date back to the invention of smoke signals. It is telling that the key step 

in the claimed invention, the transmission of the specific confidential information, can be 

accomplished via “mail” or “telephone.” ’799 Patent 24:22-25:39. It is implausible that a system 

employing the postal system or human-to-human telephone interaction to accomplish its critical 

objective is a solution to a uniquely technological problem.

In addition, nowhere do the ’799 Patent claims say anything about “malicious 

eavesdropping” or “interactive information systems.” Nor is there a description of how to secure 

the transmission of information over unsecure communication lines beyond the use of 

identification codes. Indeed, it is undisputed that the patent does not describe a more secure 

technology for transferring the information; as noted above, the actual transmission of the 

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confidential information occurs via telephone or mail. On their face, then, the claims do not say 

what OpenTV claims they say. While the specification—from which OpenTV draws much of the 

language it uses to support its argument that the claims are not drawn to an abstract idea—may be 

used to provide context for interpretation of the patent claims, “[i]t is a ‘bedrock principle’ of 

patent law that ‘the claims of a patent define the invention to which the patentee is entitled the 

right to exclude.’” Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (quoting 

Innova/Pure Water, Inc. v. Safari Water Filtration Sys., Inc., 381 F.3d 1111, 1115 (Fed. Cir. 

2004)). As claimed, OpenTV’s “specific solution” boils down to the use of identification codes to 

organize and transmit confidential information. 

Even construing the claims as OpenTV does, the invention claimed by the ’799 Patent is 

not “necessarily rooted in computer technology in order to overcome a problem specifically 

arising in the realm of [television] networks.” DDR Holdings, 773 F.3d at 1257. Rather, as noted 

above, the problem of transmitting confidential information using unsecure communication 

methods has existed for centuries, long before the advent of interactive television networks. The 

’799 Patent claims are drawn to the abstract idea of using identification codes to solve this age-old 

problem. See Planet Bingo, 576 Fed. Appx. at 1008 (holding that claims were directed to the 

abstract idea of preventing “tampering problem[s]” and “other security risks” during commercial 

transactions). 

ii. The ’799 Patent Method Claims Do Not Contain An Inventive Concept

The second prong of the Alice test requires the Court to examine the claims of the ’799 

Patent, both individually and as an ordered combination, to determine whether they include an 

“inventive concept.” OpenTV argues that the ’799 Patent method claims contain an inventive 

concept because they “describe[] a specific method that can be performed by a single entity and 

[are] directed to solving a specific technological problem” in that they “provide[] a method that 

may be used to route user data using certain identifiers over an unsecure communications channel 

in an interactive information system.” Opp. at 15. OpenTV goes on to summarize the dependent 

method claims without identifying any specific inventive concept embodied by those claims, 

whether taken individually or as an ordered combination. See id. at 15-16.

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The Court finds that the claims do not contain the required inventive concept to save the 

’799 Patent from ineligibility under Section 101. The limitations that the information exchanged 

be confidential, that the information be transmitted in part using unsecure communication lines, or 

that the information be verified in some fashion, do not constitute elements “sufficient to ensure 

that the patent in practice amounts to significantly more than a patent upon the [abstract idea] 

itself.” Mayo, 132 S. Ct. at 1294. 

Application of the machine-or-transformation test, which courts consider when conducting 

the second prong of the Alice analysis, confirms this conclusion. While the machine-ortransformation test is not dispositive, it remains “a useful and important clue.” Bilski v. Kappos, 

561 U.S. at 604 (2009). The ’799 Patent method claims generally describe the organization and 

exchange of intangible information; they do not “transform a particular article into a different state 

or thing.” In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 954 (Fed. Cir. 2008); see also CyberSource Corp., 654 F.3d 

at 1370 (“The mere collection and organization of data . . . is insufficient to meet the

transformation prong of the test.”). In Diamond v. Diehr, on the other hand (a case on which 

OpenTV relies), the Supreme Court found it clear that the claimed invention involved the 

transformation of a physical article into a different state or thing and based its holding that the 

patent was directed to eligible subject matter in large part on that fact. 450 U.S. at 184, 192-93. 

As for the machine prong, “nowhere does the [’799 Patent] tie the claims at issue to a novel 

machine.” Ultramercial, 772 F.3d at 717. 

OpenTV does not address the machine-or-transformation test. Instead, OpenTV urges the 

Court to look past the conclusion that flows from the application of that test and instead analogize 

the ’799 Patent to the patent at issue in DDR. See Opp. at 12. But that case is readily 

distinguishable. The DDR patent was directed to the problem of how to retain website visitors 

who clicked on links to third-party advertisements. DDR Holdings, 773 F.3d at 1257. In the 

absence of the patented invention, the “routine, conventional functioning of Internet hyperlink 

protocol” would automatically transport visitors away from the host’s website. Id. To solve this 

problem, the patented invention claimed a method for creating a “hybrid” web page that combined 

the visual “look and feel” of the host website with the information sought by the user from the 

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third-party website. Id. The Court held that, “taken together as an ordered combination,” the 

claims at issue “specify how interactions with the Internet are manipulated to yield a desired result 

. . . that overrides the routine and conventional sequence of events ordinarily triggered by the click 

of a hyperlink” and therefore “recite an invention that is not merely the routine or conventional use 

of the Internet.” Id. at 1258-59. The issue of retaining website visitors obviously did not arise 

until the creation of the Internet and hyperlink protocol. The patented solution was thus directly 

tied to a specific technological challenge. 

Here, as described more fully above in the Court’s analysis of the first prong of the Alice

test, the ’799 Patent does not claim a solution to a problem that arose uniquely in the context of 

interactive television networks. Furthermore, the ’799 Patent claims recite a method that does not 

go beyond the “routine or conventional use” of existing electronic components. The ’799 Patent 

does not manipulate the mechanism by which information is transmitted via an interactive 

network; instead, the method claims merely describe the use of identifiers to code confidential 

information and the transmission of those identifiers using “routine” and “conventional” methods.

Finally, OpenTV’s argument that the original assignee of the ’799 Patent “was the first to 

provide this inventive combination and is credited as the provider of the first interactive television 

service” does not change the Court’s analysis. Opp. at 14. As a threshold matter, the Court will 

not consider evidence submitted by OpenTV outside of the TAC. See Swartz v. KPMG LLP, 476 

F.3d 756, 763 (9th Cir. 2007). Furthermore, the fact that a company may be the first to 

successfully apply an abstract idea within a new technological context does not transform the 

abstract idea into something tangible and patentable. See Bilski v. Kappos, 561 U.S. 593, 610-611 

(2010). While this type of argument may be relevant to a novelty or obviousness analysis, it has 

no place in an analysis of the patentability of the subject matter to which the claims are directed. 

See Diamond v. Diehr, 450 U.S. 175, 189-91 (1981) (distinguishing patent-eligibility under § 101 

from novelty and obviousness under §§ 102 and 103); Cogent Med., Inc., 2014 WL 4966326, at *4 

& n.3 (explaining that “[i]t is important to distinguish novelty and obviousness from the ‘inventive 

feature’ analysis required by the Supreme Court in Alice”).

OpenTV is unable to identify any inventive concept contained in the ’799 Patent method 

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claims, as is the Court. The method claims therefore fail both prongs of the Alice test. 

iii. The ’799 Patent System Claims Fall With the Method Claims

The ’799 Patent system claims fall along with the method claims. Claims 1-2 “add nothing 

of substance to the underlying abstract idea” to which method claims 3-12 are directed. Alice 

Corp., 134 S. Ct. at 2360. Indeed, the “system claims are simply the method claims implemented 

on a system for performing the method.” Accenture Global Servs., GmbH v. Guidewire Software, 

Inc., 728 F.3d 1336, 1342 (Fed. Cir. 2013). OpenTV argues that the system claims describe 

“specific, concrete, physical components” and specific details regarding the interaction of those 

components. Opp. at 14. But reciting hardware elements like “Provider Component,” “Reception 

Component,” and “Response Collector Component” does not render the method applied by the 

system any less abstract, particularly after consideration of the descriptions of these components in 

the specification. See ’799 Patent 5:38-7:51 (describing “conventional broadcast signal,” 

“conventional personal computer system,” “television system,” and “conventional television 

broadcast transmitter” as embodiments of the elements of the Provider Component); 7:52-10:42 

(describing “conventional television receiver,” “conventional television broadcast tuner,” 

“conventional modem,” “conventional flash memory,” and “conventional infrared command 

encoder” as embodiments of the elements of the Reception Component); 24:22-25:39 (stating that 

the Response Collector Component may forward user information via “mail” or “telephone”). 

To contain an inventive concept, the system technology must do more than perform “wellunderstood, routine, and conventional activities commonly used in industry.” Content Extraction, 

776 F.3d at 1348. The ’799 Patent system claim components are described solely in terms of their 

functions, and the “broadcasting,” “receiving,” “storing,” “assembling,” “associating,” and 

“transmitting” functions performed by those components boil down to electronic communication 

and recordkeeping, two of the “most basic functions of” generic computer technology. See Alice 

Corp., 134 S. Ct. at 2359. Because the system claims employ “purely functional and generic” 

components for “performing the basic calculation, storage, and transmission functions required by 

the method claims,” they also are patent-ineligible under Section 101. Id. at 2360.

In summary, the only plausible reading of the ’799 Patent method and system claims is that 

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they are directed to patent-ineligible subject matter, do not contain an inventive concept, and are

therefore invalid under Section 101. On their face, OpenTV’s claims do not sufficiently limit the 

abstract idea to which they are drawn, leading to the exact “risk [of] disproportionately tying up 

the use of the underlying ideas” that Alice warns against. Alice Corp., 134 S.Ct. at 2354-55 

(internal quotations omitted). 

C. Willful Infringement

Section 284 of the Patent Code permits a court to “increase the damages up to three times 

the amount found or assessed.” 35 U.S.C. § 284. A finding of willful infringement is a 

prerequisite to the award of enhanced damages under Section 284. See In re Seagate Tech., LLC, 

497 F.3d 1360, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2007). To state a claim for willful infringement, the plaintiff must 

plead that the defendant acted with knowledge of the patent and of his alleged infringement, or 

equivalent facts. Sentry Prot. Prods., Inc. v. Eagle Mfg. Co., 400 F.3d 910, 918 (Fed. Cir. 2005) 

(citing Dunlap v. Schofield, 152 U.S. 244, 248 (1894)). 

Case law in this district diverges on the question of whether claims for willful infringement 

may be based on knowledge inferred solely from the filing of the complaint. In Vasudevan 

Software, Inc. v. TIBCO Software Inc., the court dismissed plaintiff’s claim for willful 

infringement based on a bare allegation of post-filing conduct because not doing so “would invite 

claims of willfulness in every patent suit.” 2012 WL 1831543, at *5 (N.D. Cal. May 18, 2012). 

More recently, another court denied a motion to dismiss claims for willful infringement based in 

part on post-filing conduct. Potter Voice Techs., LLC v. Apple Inc., 24 F. Supp. 3d 882, 887-88 

(N.D. Cal. 2014). Noting that “the fact that the plaintiff has not sought a preliminary injunction 

weighs strongly against awarding damages for post-filing willful infringement,” the court 

nevertheless held that it was “inappropriate to resolve the issue of damages at the motion to 

dismiss stage” because other factors may impact the determination of enhanced damages, 

“including the developing course of the present litigation.” Id.; see also MyMedicalRecords, Inc. 

v. Jardogs, LLC, 1 F. Supp. 3d 1020, 1026 (C.D. Cal. 2014) (denying motion to dismiss willful 

infringement claims based solely on post-filing conduct because invalidating such claims as a 

matter of law would “give defendant free reign to willfully infringe a patent of which it is now 

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blatantly aware simply because a plaintiff chose not to move for a preliminary injunction” and 

“[s]uch a result would eviscerate the whole basis behind enhanced damages for willful 

infringement”).

OpenTV alleges that Apple’s infringement of the asserted patents was “willful and 

deliberate.” TAC ¶¶ 70, 79, 89, 99. The Court finds that OpenTV has not stated a claim for 

willful infringement based on prefiling conduct in relation to the’287, ’586, or ’229 patents.2 

OpenTV alleges only that Apple “had knowledge [of the ’287, ’586, and ’229 patents] prior to the 

filing of Plaintiffs’ Complaint for Patent Infringement by virtue of [OpenTV’s parent company’s]

role in the market and the impact of [OpenTV’s parent company’s] portfolio on Apple’s 

products.” TAC ¶¶ 79, 89, 99. This allegation is based only on OpenTV’s separate allegation that 

Apple “would be aware of a prominent portfolio such as that of [OpenTV’s parent company].” 

TAC ¶¶ 77, 86, 96. The Court finds that these allegations are not sufficient to support a claim for 

willful infringement. The Court cannot infer knowledge of particular patents from knowledge of 

the existence of a company’s entire portfolio of patents. See Vasudevan Software, 2012 WL 

1831543, at *3 (“The requisite knowledge of the patent allegedly infringed simply cannot be 

inferred from mere knowledge of other patents, even if somewhat similar.”). The Court also finds 

that OpenTV’s allegation that Apple would have actual knowledge of the patents based on 

litigation or a license between OpenTV and a third party is insufficient to support the willful 

infringement claims. See TAC ¶¶ 77, 86, 96. 

In contrast, the Court finds that OpenTV has stated a claim for willful infringement based 

on prefiling conduct in relation to the ’033 Patent. See TAC ¶ 68 (“Apple has knowledge of the 

’033 Patent at least since this patent was identified to Apple during prosecution of [patents 

assigned to Apple].”).

OpenTV’s allegations of willful infringement based on postfiling conduct remain for the 

’287, ’586, and ’229 patents. The Court agrees with the reasoning in Potter Voice Technologies

and finds that it is not appropriate to resolve these claims at the motion to dismiss stage. Plaintiffs 

 

2 Because all of OpenTV’s infringement claims as to the ’799 Patent are dismissed, the Court does 

not analyze OpenTV’s claims for willful infringement of the ’799 Patent.

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have alleged the required knowledge of the patents and infringement. See, e.g., TAC ¶ 77 (“Apple 

has had knowledge and notice of the ’287 Patent and Apple’s infringement of the ’287 Patent 

since at least the filing and service of the original, First Amended, Second Amended, and Third 

Amended Complaints and despite this knowledge continues to infringe.”). Accordingly, the Court 

denies Apple’s Motion to Dismiss OpenTV’s willful infringement claims.

III. CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, OpenTV’s claims of infringement of the ’799 Patent are 

DISMISSED WITH PREJUDICE. Apple’s Motion to Dismiss the TAC is DENIED as to all 

claims of willful infringement.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: April 6, 2015

______________________________________

HAYWOOD S. GILLIAM, JR.

United States District Judge

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