Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_07-cv-06166/USCOURTS-cand-3_07-cv-06166-4/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:145 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

PENG TAN, an individual,

Plaintiff,

 v.

INTEGRATED SILICON SOLUTIONS,

INC., a Delaware corporation, and 

Defendant. /

No. C 07-06166 WHA

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND

DENYING IN PART DEFENDANT’S

MOTION FOR SUMMARY

JUDGMENT

INTRODUCTION

In this patent-infringement action, defendant moves for summary judgment of invalidity

of all asserted claims. For the reasons stated below, defendant’s motion is GRANTED IN PART

AND DENIED IN PART.

STATEMENT

Plaintiff Peng Tan is the inventor and owner of U.S. Pat. No. 4,682,857. The patent

itself is directed to a method of using liquid crystals to identify “hot spots” on a semiconductor

chip — i.e., areas on a chip with higher surface temperature. The patent takes advantage of an

inherent property of liquid crystals, namely that they change color when heated past a certain

threshold temperature. The patent purportedly teaches a method where the temperature of a

liquid crystal is brought “infinitesimally close” to the threshold temperature to thereby allow

detection of hot spots at very low power levels (col. 6:53–55).

Tan wrote and filed the original patent application himself in 1985. The application

disclosed the use of light-bulb heating filaments to heat up the liquid crystals. In response to

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the first office action in 1987, Tan made several amendments explaining (Bismonte Decl. Exh.

A):

Due to my lack of expertise in English, I have hired a

technical writer to edit my submission. Although the work

now reads better, I hope that the length of the necessary

correction does not inconvenience you.

The amendments included the following (col. 1:62–2:11):

The infinitesimal temperature control method can be

achieved by many forms of heating means, such as, but not

limited to, a conductive hot plate, a convective oven or a

radiative heating light. All these heating means work with

various degrees of effectiveness in the invented

infinitesimal temperature control method. The key to the

said infinitesimal temperature control method is that the

heating means operates in a repeatedly turning on and

turning off mode. It is during the turning on mode that the

heating means will gradually heat up the liquid crystal film

and will bring the film temperature infinitesimally close

below to the liquid crystal phase transition temperature. To

illustrate the said infinitesimal temperature control method,

a detailed radiative heating light heating system is

described in the SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION and

the DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION.

It should be emphasized that it is not the detailed design of

the heating means that contributes to the primary success of

bringing the liquid crystal film temperature infinitesimally

close below to the liquid crystal phase transition

temperature, rather it is the invented method of operating

the heating means at a repeatedly turning on and turning off

mode.

In addition, Tan amended now claim 1, changing a limitation for “light bulb type of heating

filaments” to a limitation for a “heating generating means” (col. 8:23). 

This action was filed on December 5, 2007, alleging defendant Integrated Silicon

Solutions, Inc., infringed claims 4-11 of the ’857 patent. The ’857 patent was previously put

into reexamination where the examiner finally rejected claim 11 as anticipated by the prior art. 

The examiner’s final rejection was affirmed by Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. 

Plaintiff sought reconsideration of that decision, and the Board issued a second decision

modifying but affirming the final rejection. Plaintiff has since appealed the Board’s decision to

the Federal Circuit. That appeal is currently pending. Defendant now maintains plaintiff is

precluded from asserting claim 11 based on the doctrine of collateral estoppel. Defendant also

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moves for summary judgment of invalidity of claims 4-10 on the ground that the 1987

amendments failed to comply with the written-description requirement of 35 U.S.C. 112. In

particular, defendant argues that the addition of “a convective oven” to the specification was

“new matter” prohibited by 35 U.S.C. 132 and not disclosed in the original application.

ANALYSIS

Summary judgment is granted when “the pleadings, depositions, answers to

interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there is no

genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a

matter of law.” FRCP 56(c). A district court must determine, viewing the evidence in the light

most favorable to the non-moving party, whether there is any genuine issue of material fact. 

Giles v. General Motors Acceptance Corp., 494 F.3d 865, 873 (9th Cir. 2007). A genuine issue

of fact is one that could reasonably be resolved, based on the factual record, in favor of either

party. A dispute is “material” only if it could affect the outcome of the suit under the governing

law. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248–49 (1986). 

1. CLAIM 4-10: WRITTEN DESCRIPTION REQUIREMENT.

Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. 112 ¶ 1, the patent specification is required to “contain a written

description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full,

clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or

with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same.” The written-description

requirement and its corollary, the new-matter prohibition of 35 U.S.C. 132, both serve to ensure

that the patent applicant was in full possession of the claimed subject matter at the time the

original application was filed. See TurboCare Div. of Demag Delaval Turbomachinery Corp. v.

General Elec., 264 F.3d 1111, 1118 (Fed. Cir. 2001). “To satisfy the written description

requirement the disclosure of the prior application must convey with reasonable clarity to those

skilled in the art that, as of the filing date sought, [the inventor] was in possession of the

invention. While a prior application need not contain precisely the same words as are found in

the asserted claims, the prior application must indicate to a person skilled in the art that the

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 Unless otherwise stated, all internal quotations and citations are omitted from this order.

2 In his opposition, plaintiff dedicates the majority of his argument to attempting to establish that one skilled in the

art would have considered a convective oven to be an “equivalent” of a heating lamp at the time the application was filed.

As stated, however, this is not the relevant test for the written-description requirement. Plaintiff must instead show that one

skilled in the art would have recognized after reading the original application that the matter in question was actually

disclosed.

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inventor was ‘in possession’ of the invention as later claimed.” PowerOasis, Inc. v. T-Mobile

USA, Inc., 522 F.3d 1299, 1306 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (emphasis in original).1

 

Any disclosure relied on must be actual or inherent. In order for a disclosure to be

inherent, “the missing descriptive matter must necessarily be present in the [original]

application’s specification such that one skilled in the art would recognize such disclosure.” 

Tronzo v. Bioment, Inc., 156 F.3d 1154, 1159 (Fed. Cir. 1998). A mere showing that the scope

of the claimed invention covers obvious variants or equivalents of the original disclosure,

however, is not enough to satisfy the written description requirement. As the Federal Circuit

put it in Lockwood v. American Airlines, Inc., 107 F.3d 1565, 1572 (Fed. Cir.1997):

While the meaning of terms, phrases, or diagrams in a

disclosure is to be explained or interpreted from the

vantage point of one skilled in the art, all the limitations

must appear in the specification. The question is not

whether a claimed invention is an obvious variant of that

which is disclosed in the specification. Rather, a prior

application itself must describe an invention, and do so in

sufficient detail that one skilled in the art can clearly

conclude that the inventor invented the claimed invention

as of the filing date sought.

Plaintiff here does not dispute that the original application did not actually disclose the use of a

convective oven to heat up liquid crystals. Despite plaintiff’s failure to raise the argument, this

order will assume that plaintiff maintains that the original application inherently disclosed the

use of a convective oven.2

In order to determine whether or not the patentee was in possession of the claimed

invention when originally filed, the claim terms must first be construed. Here, the only claim

term at issue is “a heating generating means” as stated in claim 1. For purposes of this motion,

however, the parties have agreed through their briefings that the term is a means-plus-function

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element subject to 35 U.S.C. 112, ¶ 6, with corresponding structures of “heating lamps, a single

heating lamp, or a conductive hot plate, or a convective oven” (col. 7:43–46). 

Given this construction, this order now address whether Tan improperly added new

matter to his application in violation of the written-description requirement of 35 U.S.C. 112. 

On this record, summary judgment on this issue is inappropriate. There is a genuine issue of

material as to whether the 1987 amendments were disclosed in the original application. The

relevant inquiry is whether one skilled in the art would have recognized that Tan disclosed the

use of conductive plates and convective ovens for heating the liquid crystals in his original

disclosure. Significantly, defendant has provided no declarations or any other evidence

addressing this issue. “The fact that the Patent Office allows . . . an amendment without

objection thereto as new matter . . . is entitled to an especially weighty presumption of

correctness.” Brooktree Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 977 F.2d 1555, 1574–75 (Fed.

Cir. 1992). Defendant has provided no evidence to overcome this presumption.

For its part, plaintiff has offered the declaration of Frank Jung, a purported expert in the

field. Although Jung’s declaration heavily focuses on whether one skilled in the art in 1985

would have considered conductive ovens to be an equivalent to heating lamps — a question that

is clearly irrelevant under Lockwood — there are several portions that do suggest that a person

of ordinary skill in the art would have thought conductive ovens were disclosed by the original

application. The declaration only further demonstrates that a martial issue of fact exists. 

Summary judgment of invalidity of claims 4-10 is therefore DENIED.

2. CLAIM 11: COLLATERAL ESTOPPEL.

Collateral estoppel may preclude a patentee from relitigating the validity of a particular

claim if that claim has already been found to be invalid. See Blonder-Tongue Laboratories, Inc.

v. University of Illinois Foundation, 402 U.S. 313 (1971). “Because the application of

collateral estoppel is not a matter within the exclusive jurisdiction of [the Federal Circuit],” the

law of the circuit in which a district court resides should be applied. Vardon Golf Co., Inc. v.

Karsten Manufacturing Corp., 294 F.3d 1330, 1333 (2002). Under Ninth Circuit law, collateral

estoppel is appropriate where: (1) the issue at stake is identical to an issue raised in the prior

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litigation; (2) the issue was actually litigated in the prior litigation; and (3) the determination of

the issue in the prior litigation must have been a critical and necessary part of the judgment in

the earlier action. Littlejohn v. U.S., 321 F.3d 915, 923 (9th Cir. 2003).

Defendant has shown that each of these requirements has been satisfied in regard to

claim 11. The examiner rejected claim 11 on reexamination. This decision was affirmed twice

by the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. Tan had a full and fair opportunity to litigate

the validity of claim 11 on several occasions. Tan does not dispute these facts. Instead he

argues that he should not be precluded from asserting claim 11 because he is currently

appealing the Board’s decision to the Federal Circuit. But Tan admits that the appeal by itself

would not bar application of the doctrine of collateral estoppel (Opp. 10). Given the extensive

history of proceedings regarding claim 11 and their respective outcomes, this order finds that

Tan is estopped from asserting claim 11 in this case. 

CONCLUSION

For the above-stated reasons, defendant’s motion is GRANTED IN PART AND DENIED IN

PART. A genuine issue of material fact exists as to whether Tan’s amendments to his

application were made in violation of the written-description requirement. Tan, however, is

precluded from asserting claim 11.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: June 5, 2008. 

WILLIAM ALSUP

UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

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