Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-5_00-cv-20905/USCOURTS-cand-5_00-cv-20905-69/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 190
Nature of Suit: Other Contract Actions
Cause of Action: 28:1331 Fed. Question: Breach of Contract

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United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER DENYING RAMBUS'S MOTION IN LIMINE No. 8 TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN TESTIMONY OF GRAHAM ALLAN

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

TSF

United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

E-filed: 2/13/08 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

SAN JOSE DIVISION

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR INC., HYNIX

SEMICONDUCTOR AMERICA INC.,

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR U.K. LTD., and

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR

DEUTSCHLAND GmbH,

Plaintiffs,

v.

RAMBUS INC.,

Defendant.

No. CV-00-20905 RMW

ORDER DENYING RAMBUS'S MOTION IN

LIMINE No. 8 TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN

TESTIMONY OF GRAHAM ALLAN

[Re Docket No. 2652]

RAMBUS INC.,

Plaintiff,

v.

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR INC., HYNIX

SEMICONDUCTOR AMERICA INC.,

HYNIX SEMICONDUCTOR

MANUFACTURING AMERICA INC., 

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.,

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA,

INC., SAMSUNG SEMICONDUCTOR, INC.,

SAMSUNG AUSTIN SEMICONDUCTOR,

L.P., 

NANYA TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION,

NANYA TECHNOLOGY CORPORATION

U.S.A.,

Defendants.

No. C-05-00334 RMW

[Re Docket No. 558]

Case 5:00-cv-20905-RMW Document 3201 Filed 02/13/08 Page 1 of 8
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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1 For purposes of this order, "Hynix" refers to the Hynix entities in these actions.

ORDER DENYING RAMBUS'S MOTION IN LIMINE No. 8 TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN TESTIMONY OF GRAHAM ALLAN

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

TSF 2

Rambus moves to exclude Graham Allan from testifying "on the DRAM industry's

perception of Rambus's interface technology ("RIT") and to its perfect ignorance of the possibility

that Rambus might obtain patents reading on JEDEC standards." Mot. at 1. Rambus's argument

focuses on Allan's alleged lack of qualifications to express such opinions and his alleged inadequate

factual basis for his conclusions. Hynix1 argues that Allan is qualified to render an opinion on the

perspective of a reasonable memory technology engineer with regard to RIT and on the features of

the RIT that were well known in the memory technology industry and therefore a part of a

reasonable memory technology engineer's "toolbox." Opp. at 3. The court denies the motion on the

grounds made but amplifies on its ruling on Rambus's motion in limine No. 1 as it pertains to Allan.

I. LEGAL STANDARD

Federal Rule of Evidence 702 governs the admissibility of expert testimony. An expert must

be qualified by virtue of their "knowledge, skill, experience, training, or education." Fed. R. Evid.

702. An expert witness' testimony must also be based on "sufficient facts or data." Id. While the

court has broad discretion in deciding whether that standard has been met, the court cannot shirk its

gatekeeper duties. See General Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 142, 146 (1997); compare with id.

at 148 (Breyer, J., concurring).

II. ANALYSIS

A. Mr. Allan's Qualifications

Graham Allan is an electrical engineer who attended JEDEC JC-42.3 meetings on behalf of

MOSAID Technologies, Inc. while Rambus was also a member of JC-42.3 Luedtke Decl., Ex. A at

3 (hereinafter "Allan Report"). Rambus argues that Mr. Allan is not qualified to offer an opinion

regarding the state of mind of a reasonable memory technology engineer.

Rambus argues that Mr. Allan is not qualified to testify to what a reasonable memory

technology engineer during the nineties thought about Rambus's technology because he has no

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For the Northern District of California

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ORDER DENYING RAMBUS'S MOTION IN LIMINE No. 8 TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN TESTIMONY OF GRAHAM ALLAN

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

TSF 3

"specialized training in history or the social sciences" that would enable him "to conduct factintensive primary research into the actual mental state of industry members, then analyze this data

using reliable social science methodologies." Mot. 8 at 4 (citing Prado Alvarez v. R.J. Reynolds

Tobacco Co., 405 F.3d 36, 39-43 (1st Cir. 2005)). The Prado Alvarez case suggests that a person

with a bachelor's degree in history and irrelevant experience would not satisfy Rule 702's

qualification requirement such that they could testify to what was "common knowledge" to a group

of people. 405 F.3d at 40. The court agrees with Prado Alvarez's interpretation of Rule 702 – a

person with a bachelor's degree in history alone is unlikely to be qualified as an expert about what a

society knew.

Unlike the plaintiff in Prado Alvarez, Hynix does not attempt to qualify Mr. Allan as an

expert regarding a reasonable Memory technology engineer's knowledge by virtue of his education. 

Indeed, his education in electrical engineering leaves him less qualified by virtue of education than

the expert in Prado Alvarez. Hynix instead seeks to qualify Mr. Allan by virtue of his years of

experience at JEDEC and by virtue of his having been involved in the memory industry during the

relevant time period. Mr. Allan's lack of training in history or social sciences is therefore irrelevant;

what matters is his experience. Rambus further argues that Mr. Allan's experience is in engineering

and business, but that this experience cannot qualify him as an expert on what a reasonable memory

technology engineer would have believed. The court disagrees because Mr. Allan has the requisite

knowledge and experience to testify as to what an engineer reasonably skilled in memory

technology, based upon the information available to JEDEC at the time the SDRAM standards were

adopted, would have understood to be the scope of Rambus's interface technology. Mr. Allan has

worked in memory technology for decades, attended JC-42.3 meetings, and has served as chairman

of the JC-42.3 committee. Allan Report at 3. This experience satisfies Rule 702's qualification

requirement. Mr. Allan is qualified to testify to what a memory technology engineer's opinion about

Rambus's technology would have been based on the documents he has reviewed. Of course, Mr.

Allan is not qualified to testify as to what any JEDEC member or memory technology engineer

actually understood about Rambus's technology at the time the JEDEC SDRAM standards were

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ORDER DENYING RAMBUS'S MOTION IN LIMINE No. 8 TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN TESTIMONY OF GRAHAM ALLAN

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

TSF 4

adopted.

B. The Factual Basis for Mr. Allan's Report

Rambus next argues that Mr. Allan's opinion is not reliable because it is not based on

sufficient facts or data. Rambus faults Mr. Allan for not conducting surveys or interviews of what

JEDEC members believed about Rambus technology during the nineties. The failure to conduct

surveys or interviews does not doom Mr. Allan's testimony. Indeed, his opinion would likely be less

reliable if based on interviews due to hindsight bias and the widespread self-interest of those who

would have been interviewed.

Instead, Mr. Allan formed his opinion based on his experience and on reviewing slightly

over 200 documents. Allan Report at 4, Appendix B. Reviewing contemporaneous documents

appears to be one of the more reliable methods of reconstructing what someone may have known

during a specific time period. See Prado Alvarez, 405 F.3d at 41-42 (endorsing the other historian's

thorough review of "weekly magazines, island-wide daily newspapers, Puerto Rican and national

health publications, Puerto Rican laws relating to tobacco, smoking, cigarettes and health

instruction; education materials, including health education courses and school texts; religious and

church publications; polling and survey data; 'materials related to popular culture'; and various

government documents"). To be sure, certain entries in Appendix B appear irrelevant, and even

prejudicial, to forming an accurate opinion of what a reasonable memory technology engineer would

have believed about Rambus technology from 1992 to 2000. For example, documents published

after 2000 would seem irrelevant unless they provide historical context. See, e.g., id. at Appendix B,

¶¶ 165-170. While these mistakes in circumscribing the universe of materials he considered make

Mr. Allan's testimony less reliable, they do not shake the court's finding that, by the preponderance

of the evidence, Allan's testimony is reliable.

Rambus criticizes Mr. Allan's selection of documents to review, particularly his omission of

Rambus licensing agreements, and specifically Hynix's agreement and its "Other DRAMs" clause. 

A failure to consider certain sources of data can render an expert's opinion unreliable. See Carnegie

Mellon Univ. v. Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc., 55 F. Supp. 2d 1024, 1039 (N.D. Cal. 1999) (citing cases). 

Case 5:00-cv-20905-RMW Document 3201 Filed 02/13/08 Page 4 of 8
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ORDER DENYING RAMBUS'S MOTION IN LIMINE No. 8 TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN TESTIMONY OF GRAHAM ALLAN

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

TSF 5

The situations described in the case law, however, are far more egregious than Mr. Allan's failure to

consider how various licensing agreements would shape a reasonable memory technology engineer's

understanding of Rambus's technology. Rambus can most appropriately address this gap in Mr.

Allan's opinion through cross-examination. Accordingly, Rambus's motion to exclude the testimony

of Mr. Allan based upon Rambus's Daubert motion is denied.

C. The Scope of Mr. Allan's Testimony Regarding Prior Art

While Mr. Allan's testimony is not properly excluded under Rule 702, the court is concerned

about the scope of Mr. Allan's testimony in relation to Rule 403. The court stated in its ruling on

Rambus's motion in limine no. 1 related to patent validity:

The motion is granted to the extent that it seeks to preclude the Manufacturers

from arguing the subject Rambus patents are invalid. However, this ruling does not

prevent the testimony of McAlexander or Allan that Rambus's disclosures to JEDEC

would not have put a reasonable memory technology engineer on notice that Rambus

would seek patent rights covering features then under discussion at JEDEC. As

pointed out by the FTC in FTC Rambus at 62: "The ability, after the fact, to

determine from a written description that at the time of filing an applicant 'was in

possession' of a particular invention 'now claimed' is not the same thing as the ability

to predict, prior too publication, the potential scope of future claims." Nor does this

ruling preclude Allan from testifying that at the time of JEDEC's adoption of the

standards in question "programmable latency," programmable bust length," "dual

edge clocking" and "programmable write latency" were well known techniques.

However, he cannot challenge or suggest that Rambus's claimed inventions covering

SDRAM and DDR SDRAM were not new and novel at the time of Rambus's original

April 18, 1990 application and an instruction making clear that Rambus's claimed

inventions were not anticipated may be necessary.

Hynix Semiconductor, Inc. v. Rambus Inc., 2008 WL 350654, *1 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 3, 2008).

Mr. Allan's report, although not directly challenging the validity of Rambus's patents,

discusses prior art suggesting that Rambus's patents were anticipated or obvious before the original

application date of April 18, 1990. While this testimony has a legitimate use (that a memory

technology engineer may not have believed a person could obtain a valid claim on certain

technologies, and therefore had no reason to suspect Rambus was seeking such claims), it creates a

pernicious inference that Rambus's patents are invalid. In arguing against instructing the jury

regarding the prior patent infringement verdict in this case, Hynix submitted that for this phase of

trial Rambus's patents would be assumed to be valid and infringed. Allowing Hynix to put on

testimony that implicitly undermines that assumption creates substantial unfair prejudice for

Case 5:00-cv-20905-RMW Document 3201 Filed 02/13/08 Page 5 of 8
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ORDER DENYING RAMBUS'S MOTION IN LIMINE No. 8 TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN TESTIMONY OF GRAHAM ALLAN

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

TSF 6

Rambus.

If Mr. Allan limits his testimony to saying that between 1992 and 2000, a reasonably skilled

engineer would have had certain "tools" and, therefore, would not have thought that someone could

obtain a patent claim covering various aspects of JEDEC's proposed SDRAM standards, the unfair

prejudice appears minimal compared to his testimony's probative value given that the patents date

back to April 1990. However, if he discusses Rambus's patent claims and testifies that the

technology embodied in those claims was well-known as of the application date, he is indirectly

challenging the validity of the patents in an unfairly prejudicial way. Obviously, the balance

between probative value and unfair prejudice is context-specific and cannot be defined in advance,

but Hynix must be careful to limit the scope of Mr. Allan's testimony to minimize any inference that

Rambus's patents are invalid. Hynix may revisit this issue if it believes Rambus's cross-examination

of Mr. Allan justifies reconsideration.

III. ORDER

For the foregoing reasons, the court denies Rambus's Daubert motion to exclude Mr. Allan's

testimony. However, Mr. Allan may not testify that Rambus's claimed SDRAM patent claims were

not new inventions at or before the original application date of Rambus's patents.

DATED: 2/13/08 

RONALD M. WHYTE

United States District Judge

Case 5:00-cv-20905-RMW Document 3201 Filed 02/13/08 Page 6 of 8
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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ORDER DENYING RAMBUS'S MOTION IN LIMINE No. 8 TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN TESTIMONY OF GRAHAM ALLAN

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

TSF 7

Notice of this document has been electronically sent to:

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

Burton Alexander

Gross

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

Carolyn Hoecker

Luedtke

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keith Rhoderic Dhu

Hamilton, II

keith.hamilton@mto.com Susan Gregory

VanKeulen 

svankeulen@thelenreid.com

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

Miriam Kim Miriam.Kim@mto.com Tomomi Katherine

Harkey 

tharkey@thelen.com

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

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

Rosemarie Theresa

Ring

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

com

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

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

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

Steven McCall

Perry 

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

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

m

William Hans

Baumgartner, Jr

wbaumgartner@sidley.com Rachael Lynn Ballard

McCracken

rachaelmccracken@quinnemanu

el.com

Robert Jason Becher robertbecher@quinnemanuel.co

m

Yonaton M Rosenzweig yonirosenzweig@quinnemanuel.

com

Case 5:00-cv-20905-RMW Document 3201 Filed 02/13/08 Page 7 of 8
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ORDER DENYING RAMBUS'S MOTION IN LIMINE No. 8 TO EXCLUDE CERTAIN TESTIMONY OF GRAHAM ALLAN

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

TSF 8

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

02298

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

Craig R. Kaufman ckaufman@orrick.co

m

Claire Elise Goldstein claire.goldstein@weil.com

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

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

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

m

Kaiwen Tseng ktseng@orrick.com 

Mark Shean mshean@orrick.com

Robert E. Freitas rfreitas@orrick.com

Vickie L. Feeman vfeeman@orrick.com

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

Kelli A. Crouch kcrouch@jonesday.com

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

Eugene S. Litvinoff eugene.litvinoff@usdoj.gov

May Lee Heye may.heye@usdoj.gov

Nathanael M. Cousins nat.cousins@usdoj.gov

Niall Edmund Lynch Niall.Lynch@USDOJ.GOV

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

Eric R. Lamison elamison@kirkland.com

John J. Feldhaus jfeldhaus@foley.com

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

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

Dated: 2/13/08 TSF

Chambers of Judge Whyte

Case 5:00-cv-20905-RMW Document 3201 Filed 02/13/08 Page 8 of 8