Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_13-cv-05808/USCOURTS-cand-4_13-cv-05808-29/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

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

FINJAN, INC.,

Plaintiff,

v.

PROOFPOINT, INC., et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 13-cv-05808-HSG 

ORDER DENYING DEFENDANTS’

RENEWED MOTION TO STRIKE 

PLAINTIFF’S INFRINGEMENT 

CONTENTIONS

Re: Dkt. No. 149

Plaintiff Finjan, Inc. filed the instant lawsuit on December 16, 2013, alleging that 

numerous products sold by Proofpoint, Inc. and Armorize Technologies, Inc. (“Defendants”)

infringe eight patents involving software technologies for behavior-based internet security. See 

Dkt. No. 1. As required under the Patent Local Rules, Plaintiff served its infringement contentions 

on April 17, 2014. On April 2, 2015, the Court granted Defendants’ motion to strike those 

contentions, in part, and granted leave, in part, for Plaintiff to amend its infringement contentions 

by April 23, 2015. Dkt. Nos. 118, 138. 

Pending before the Court is Defendants’ renewed motion to strike Plaintiff’s amended 

infringement contentions. Dkt. No. 149. The Court has read and considered the arguments and 

evidence offered by the parties, both in their written submissions to the Court and at the hearing 

held on July 9, 2015. For the reasons explained below, the Court DENIES Defendants’ motion.

I. LEGAL STANDARD

Patent Local Rule 3-1 provides a “streamlined mechanism to replace the series of 

interrogatories that accused infringers would likely have propounded in its absence.” FusionArc, 

Inc. v. Solidus Networks, Inc., 2007 WL 1052900, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 5, 2007) (quoting Network 

Caching Tech., LLC v. Novell Inc., 2002 WL 32126128, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Aug. 13, 2002)). The 

Rule “require[s] parties to crystallize their theories of the case early in litigation and to adhere to 

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those theories once they have been disclosed.” Nova Measuring Instruments Ltd. v. Nanometrics, 

Inc., 417 F. Supp. 2d 1121, 1123 (N.D. Cal. 2006). This early disclosure “provide[s] structure to 

discovery and enable[s] the parties to move efficiently toward claim construction and the eventual 

resolution of their dispute.” Creagri, Inc. v. Pinnaclife Inc., LLC, 2012 WL 5389775, at *2 (N.D. 

Cal. Nov. 2, 2012) (citation omitted). The Rule requires that 

infringement contentions present ‘each claim of each patent in suit 

that is allegedly infringed by each opposing party’ and identify for 

each asserted claim ‘each accused apparatus, product, device, 

process, method, act or instrumentality (‘Accused Instrumentality’) . 

. . of which the party is aware.’ Pursuant to subsection (c), the 

infringement contentions also must contain ‘a ‘chart identifying 

specifically where each limitation of each asserted claim is found 

within each Accused Instrumentality.’

Infineon Techs. v. Volterra Semiconductor, No. C 11-06239 MMC DMR, 2013 WL 322570, at *3 

(N.D. Cal. Jan. 28, 2013) (citations omitted). For infringement contentions to satisfy the Local 

Rule, “plaintiff [must] compare an accused product to its patents on a claim by claim, element by 

element basis for at least one of each defendant’s products . . . reverse engineering or its 

equivalent are required.” Network Caching, 2002 WL 32126128 at *5; InterTrust Tech. Corp. v. 

Microsoft Corp., 2003 WL 23120174, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 1, 2003) (“The purpose of Patent 

Local Rule 3-1, however, is in fact to be nit picky, to require a plaintiff to crystalize its theory of 

the case and patent claims.”); Bender v. Maxim Integrated Prods., 2010 WL 1135762, at *2 (N.D. 

Cal. Mar. 22, 2010) (“[P]laintiff bears the burden of providing infringement contentions that 

specify the location of every claim element within the accused products.”). The party claiming 

infringement is required to include in its infringement contentions “all facts known to it, including 

those discovered in [its] pre-filing inquiry.” Renesas Tech. Corp. v. Nanya Tech. Corp., 2004 WL 

2600466, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 10, 2004).

“[A]ll courts agree that the degree of specificity under Local Rule 3-1 must be sufficient to 

provide reasonable notice to the defendant [as to] why the plaintiff believes it has a ‘reasonable 

chance of proving infringement.’” Shared Memory Graphics LLC v. Apple, Inc., 812 F. Supp. 2d 

1022, 1025 (N.D. Cal. 2010) (citation omitted) (quoting View Eng’g, Inc. v. Robotic Vision Sys., 

Inc., 208 F.3d 981, 986 (Fed. Cir. 2000)). While the patent rules do not “require the disclosure of 

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specific evidence nor do they require a plaintiff to prove its infringement case, . . . a patentee must 

nevertheless disclose what in each accused instrumentality it contends practices each and every 

limitation of each asserted claim to the extent appropriate information is reasonably available to 

it.” DCG Sys. v. Checkpoint Techs., LLC, 2012 WL 1309161, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 16, 2012); see 

also Shared Memory Graphics, 812 F. Supp. 2d at 1025 (stating that patent holder “must map 

specific elements of Defendants’ alleged infringing products onto the Plaintiff’s claim 

construction”).

II. DISCUSSION

The parties dispute whether Plaintiff was required to provide pinpoint citations to source 

code in its infringement contentions. Defendants contend that the amended infringement 

contentions only list source code directories, failing to explain how the source codes support the 

infringement contentions or where the claim limitations are located within the directories. Dkt. 

No. 144 at 5-6. Defendants request that the Court strike the infringement contentions with respect 

to the citations to Defendants’ source code, or, in the alternative, preclude Plaintiff from relying on 

specific source code evidence to support its patent infringement allegations. Plaintiff contends 

that its amended contentions sufficiently place Defendants on notice of Plaintiff’s infringement 

theories and that pinpoint citations to source code are not required in this District. Dkt. No. 147 at 

6, 18. 

Defendants cite several cases in support of their proposition that, once a defendant has 

provided reasonable access to its source code, Patent Local Rule 3-1 requires a party asserting 

infringement of a software patent to provide pinpoint citations to the allegedly infringing source 

code of the accused products. Dkt. No. 144 at 8 (citing Digital Reg of Tex., LLC v. Adobe Sys. 

Inc., No. 12-cv-01971-CW (KAW), 2013 WL 3361241, at *4 (N.D. Cal. Jul. 3, 2013); Vasudevan 

Software Inc. v. IBM Corp., No. 09-cv-05897-RS (HRL), 2011 WL 940263, at *7 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 

18, 2011); Genentech, Inc. v. Trs. of the Univ. of Pa., No. 10-cv-2037-LHK (PSG), 2010 U.S. 

Dist. LEXIS 142450, at *7 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 13, 2010); see also Big Baboon Corp. v. Dell, Inc., 723 

F. Supp. 2d 1224, 1228 (C.D. Cal. 2010)). Plaintiff asserts that no such requirement exists so long 

as a plaintiff has sufficiently identified its theory of infringement through other means. Dkt. No. 

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149 at 18-19 (citing Adobe Sys. Inc. v. Wowza Media Sys., No. 11-cv-02243-JST, 2014 WL 

709865, at *16 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 23, 2014); Oracle Am., Inc. v. Google, Inc., No. 10-cv-3561, 2011 

WL 4479305, at *3-4 (N. D. Cal. Sept. 26, 2011)). 

As an initial matter, the Court notes that the cases cited by Defendants do not clearly 

support their purported requirement. For example, the district’s court decision in Vasudevan

concerned the plaintiff’s alleged failure to respond to an interrogatory response specifically calling 

for pinpoint citations to source code. See Vasudevan, 2011 WL 940263 at *6. But pinpoint 

citations are not an inherent requirement of Patent Local Rule 3-1. Similarly, while the decision in 

Big Baboon discussed the Northern District’s Patent Local Rule 3-1, that decision concerned a 

response to an interrogatory propounded in an action before the Central District of California, 

which is not governed by this District’s Patent Local Rules. See 723 F. Supp. 2d at 1225-26; see 

also Finjan, Inc. v. Sophos, Inc., No. 14-CV-01197-WHO, 2015 WL 5012679, at *3 (N.D. Cal. 

Aug. 24, 2015) (rejecting plaintiff’s argument that pinpoint citations were not required under local 

rules as not relevant, where defendant had served an interrogatory requesting pinpoint citations to 

source code). Genentech is also inapt, as its passing reference to a patentee’s obligations in 

software cases had nothing to do with the subject of the decision—a patent for a breast cancer 

drug. 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 142450, at *7. Finally, while Digital Reg of Tex. comes the closest 

to articulating Defendants’ proposed requirement, that decision is silent concerning whether 

pinpoint source code citations are required. Instead, the Court merely ordered the patentee to 

amend its infringement contentions because, having had access to the defendant’s source code for 

eight months, it “should be able to amend its ICs to clearly articulate how each of [the 

defendant’s] particular products infringe on [its] respective patents.” Digital Reg of Tex., 2013 

WL 3361241, at *4.

Plaintiff’s authority is more helpful. In Adobe Systems, the defendant moved to strike a 

theory advanced in plaintiff’s expert report as unsupported by its infringement contentions because 

those contentions did not identify the source code supporting the theory. 2014 WL 709865 at *16. 

The court rejected this argument, holding that plaintiff’s contentions adequately disclosed its 

theory of infringement because they identified “the MediaReader functionality as meeting the 

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queues limitations of the ’658 patent.” Id. Adobe Systems reasoned that, having disclosed the 

functionality at issue, “Adobe was not required to list every bit of WMS source code that supports 

it.” Id. Defendants attempt to distinguish this case from Adobe Systems on the ground that 

Plaintiff has not identified any source code. Dkt. No. 157 at 7. But given that Adobe System’s 

analysis turned on the disclosure of the identified functionality (not the source code), it is not clear 

why Defendants’ claimed distinction would make any difference.

Having reviewed both the text of Rule 3-1 and the relevant case law, the Court finds that 

pinpoint citations to source code are not a per se requirement in patent cases involving software. 

Although pinpoint citations to source code are one way of meeting Rule 3-1(c)’s requirement to 

identify specifically where each limitation of each asserted claim is found within a software 

patent, the Court has not been presented with any authority holding that pinpoint citations are the 

only way to meet its requirements. The rule’s purpose is to provide notice of the patentee’s theory 

of infringement, not to provide the evidence supporting that theory. DCG Sys., 2012 WL 1309161

at *2; see also Oracle Am., 2011 WL 4479305, at *3 (the rule does not require identification of 

“every evidentiary item of proof showing that the accused element did in fact practice the 

limitation”). 

Here, the amended infringement contentions include separate charts for each accused 

instrumentality identifying Plaintiff’s infringement theories on a claim-by-claim, element-byelement basis. Dkt. No. 278, Exs. A-1-H-5. Local Rule 3-1 requires that Plaintiff articulate with 

specificity its infringement contentions such that Defendants have reasonable notice. Plaintiff 

chose to include citations to source code directories rather than source code files, and at this stage 

that is enough. Because the rule does not require identification of every evidentiary item of proof, 

the Court denies Defendants’ motion. As the Court discussed with Plaintiff’s counsel at the 

hearing, Plaintiff will be held strictly to the four corners of the theories disclosed in the 

contentions. 

Defendants alternatively request that the Court preclude Plaintiff from amending the 

infringement contentions at a later time to include source code citations from the source code 

directories. Under Patent Local Rule 3-6, Plaintiff can amend its infringement contentions “only 

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by order of the Court upon a timely showing of good cause.” The Court need not decide this issue 

now, and will consider any motion for leave if and when it is made. 

III. CONCLUSION

For the aforementioned reasons, Defendants’ renewed motion to strike is DENIED. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated:

________________________

HAYWOOD S. GILLIAM, JR.

United States District Judge

12/16/2015

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