Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01492/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01492-0/pdf.json

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

---

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

MARVELL TECHNOLOGY GROUP, LTD.,

MARVELL SEMICONDUCTOR, INC.,

Defendants-Appellants

______________________ 

2014-1492

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Western District of Pennsylvania in No. 2:09-cv-00290-

NBF, Judge Nora Barry Fischer.

______________________ 

Decided: August 4, 2015

______________________ 

E. JOSHUA ROSENKRANZ, Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, New York, NY, argued for plaintiff-appellee. 

Also represented by ERIC SHUMSKY, Washington, DC; BAS 

DE BLANK, Menlo Park, CA; PATRICK JOSEPH MCELHINNY, 

MARK G. KNEDEISEN, CHRISTOPHER MICHAEL VERDINI,

K&L Gates LLP, Pittsburgh, PA; THEODORE J. ANGELIS, 

DOUGLAS B. GREENSWAG, DAVID T. MCDONALD, Seattle, 

WA. 

KATHLEEN M. SULLIVAN, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & 

Sullivan, LLP, New York, NY, argued for defendantsCase: 14-1492 Document: 120-2 Page: 1 Filed: 08/04/2015
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appellants. Also represented by EDWARD J. DEFRANCO, 

JOSEPH MILOWIC, III, CLELAND B. WELTON, II; SUSAN 

RACHEL ESTRICH, MICHAEL THOMAS ZELLER, Los Angeles, 

CA; KEVIN P.B. JOHNSON, Redwood Shores, CA; DEREK 

SHAFFER, Washington, DC; ROY WANG, Marvell Semiconductor, Inc., Santa Clara, CA.

ANN A. BYUN, Hewlett-Packard Company, Wayne, PA, 

for amicus curiae Hewlett-Packard Company. 

ANTHONY PETERMAN, Dell Inc., Round Rock, TX, for 

amicus curiae Dell Inc. 

MARTA Y. BECKWITH, Aruba Networks, Inc., 

Sunnyvale, CA, for amicus curiae Aruba Networks, Inc. 

DAN L. BAGATELL, Perkins Coie LLP, Phoenix, AZ, for 

amici curiae Broadcom Corporation, Google Inc., Limelight Networks, Inc., Microsoft Corporation, SAS Institute 

Inc., XILINX, Inc. Also represented by KENNETH J.

HALPERN, Palo Alto, CA.

DONALD MANWELL FALK, Mayer Brown, LLP, Palo Alto, CA, for amici curiae Jeremy Bock, Michael A. Carrier, 

Bernard Chao, Jorge L. Contreras, Robert A. Heverly, 

Timothy R. Holbrook, Amy Landers, Mark A. Lemley, 

Yvette Joy Liebesman, Brian J. Love, Tyler T. Ochoa, 

Pamela Samuelson, Christopher B. Seaman, Lea Shaver, 

Toshiko Takenaka. Also represented by BRIAN J. LOVE, 

Santa, Clara, CA. 

DANIEL B. RAVICHER, Ravicher Law Firm, Coral Gables, FL, for amicus curiae Daniel B. Ravicher. 

J. ANTHONY DOWNS, Goodwin Procter LLP, Boston, 

MA, for amici curiae Boston University, Rice University, 

Texas A&M University, The University of Kansas, The 

University of Pittsburgh, The University of Minnesota. 

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Also represented by WILLIAM M. JAY, Washington, DC;

DAVID ZIMMER, San Francisco, CA. 

______________________ 

Before WALLACH, TARANTO, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.

TARANTO, Circuit Judge.

Carnegie Mellon University (“CMU”) sued Marvell 

Technology Group, Ltd. and Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.

(collectively “Marvell”) for infringing two patents related 

to hard-disk drives. A jury found for CMU on infringement and validity, and it awarded roughly $1.17 billion as 

a reasonable royalty for the infringing acts, using a rate of 

50 cents for each of certain semiconductor chips sold by 

Marvell for use in hard-disk drives. The district court 

then used that rate to extend the award to the date of 

judgment, awarded a 23-percent enhancement of the pastdamages award based on Marvell’s willfulness (found by 

the jury and the district court), and entered a judgment of 

roughly $1.54 billion for past infringement and a continuing royalty at 50 cents per Marvell-sold chip. 

Marvell appeals. We affirm the judgment of infringement and validity. As to the monetary relief: We 

affirm the rejection of Marvell’s laches defense to pre-suit 

damages. We reverse the grant of enhanced damages

under the governing willfulness standard, which does not 

require that Marvell have had a reasonable defense in 

mind when it committed its past infringement. We reject 

Marvell’s challenge to the royalty (past and continuing) 

with one exception. 

That exception involves an issue of extraterritoriality—whether the royalty, in covering all Marvell sales of 

certain chips made and delivered abroad, improperly 

reaches beyond United States borders. We conclude that 

the royalty properly embraces those Marvell-sold chips 

that, though made and delivered abroad, were imported 

into the United States, and we affirm the judgment to the 

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extent of $278,406,045.50 in past royalties (50 cents for 

each of the 556,812,091 chips the jury could properly find 

were imported), plus an amount to be calculated on remand that brings that figure forward to the time of judgment, and the ongoing royalty order to the extent it 

reaches imported Marvell-sold chips. But as to the Marvell chips made and delivered abroad but never imported 

into the United States, we conclude that a partial new 

trial is needed to determine the location, or perhaps 

locations, of the “sale” of those chips. To the extent, and 

only to the extent, that the United States is such a location of sale, chips not made in or imported into the United 

States may be included in the past-royalty award and 

ongoing-royalty order. 

BACKGROUND

CMU owns U.S. Patent No. 6,201,839, titled “Method 

and Apparatus for Correlation-Sensitive Adaptive Sequence Detection,” and related No. 6,438,180, titled “Soft 

and Hard Sequence Detection in ISI Memory Channels,” 

both granted to Drs. Aleksandar Kavcic and José Moura. 

The patents’ written descriptions are largely identical, 

and both patents claim methods, devices, and systems for 

improved accuracy in the detection of recorded data when

certain types of errors are likely due to the recording 

medium and reading mechanism. The inventions are 

particularly suited for the magnetic data-storage media of 

hard-disk drives in computers. 

The record in the case teaches that a storage disk in a 

typical hard-disk drive is coated with microscopic granular magnetic material segmented into vast numbers of 

magnetic “bit regions” arrayed in concentric tracks. Each 

region may be polarized so that its north pole may point 

in either of two directions, and that choice of polarity 

allows for recording of digital data. In particular, data 

may be encoded in transitions, i.e., in how one magnetic 

region’s orientation compares with (is the same as or 

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differs from) the orientation of the next magnetic region

in line as one moves in a particular direction. In a harddisk drive, a read-write head hovering above the disk, 

moving along a track, can detect the orientations of 

neighboring magnetic regions, thereby reading data, or 

alter the regions’ orientations, thereby writing data.

Although hard-disk drives constituted a mature and 

well-known technology by the time of the ’839 and ’180 

patents, the demand to store ever more data on each disk 

gave rise to ever new challenges. One way to store more 

data is to make the magnetic regions on the disk smaller

and smaller, thereby increasing the number of changes in 

magnetic polarity within each track. But shrinking the 

magnetic regions makes it difficult in practice for a read

head—which detects magnetic forces and translates them 

into electrical signals, the so-called “measured signals”—

to accurately identify the actual polarities and transitions 

on the disk. It becomes harder to distinguish region-toregion boundaries at which polarity changes from those at 

which it does not. 

Two such difficulties are central to this case. First, a 

change in magnetic polarity at one region-to-region 

boundary can affect the measured signal the read head 

obtains from more than one magnetic region. How much 

that spill-over effect occurs—how much “noise” there is in 

the measured signal obtained by the read head—can 

depend on what polarity changes there actually are, i.e., 

on the actual “signal” encoded on the disk. The patents 

term this “signal-dependent noise.” Second, nearby

(adjacent or almost adjacent) regions and boundaries tend 

to have related amounts of measurement error. The 

patents term this “correlated noise.” Those two noise 

effects are sometimes together called “media noise.” For 

technical reasons the parties have not treated as critical 

to the issues on appeal—including properties of the materials composing the magnetic regions and properties of 

the read heads—the noise problems become more signifiCase: 14-1492 Document: 120-2 Page: 5 Filed: 08/04/2015
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cant when the size of the magnetic regions shrinks below 

certain levels. See J.A. 2210 (signal distortion occurs 

when magnetic region size nears media grain size). 

Although increasing miniaturization of disks’ magnetic regions permits the storage of more data in the same 

amount of space, the benefit can be lost if the data cannot 

be read accurately because of noise problems. Working 

together at CMU’s Data Storage Systems Center, Dr. 

Kavcic, as a graduate student, and Dr. Moura, as a professor renowned for expertise in signal processing, conceived of ways of reducing the errors due to media noise 

and reliably detecting the data recorded on a hard disk. 

Their solution, embodied in the claims of the two patents 

at issue, uses a form of maximum-likelihood detection to 

estimate, given a measured signal (e.g., a sequence of 

voltage levels produced by a read head’s response to 

detected magnetic forces), the most likely sequence of 

data symbols actually recorded (by polarization of magnetic regions) on the disk. In theory, for a measured 

signal consisting of N “samples” taken from N recorded 

symbols, the most likely recorded-symbol sequence could 

be determined by comparing every possible N-length 

sequence of symbols with the measured N-sample signal 

to determine which sequence best matches the measured 

signal, by some measure of similarity. But the number of 

possible sequences to compare grows exponentially with 

N. More efficient methods are desirable.

One such method (on which the patents at issue here 

build) takes its name from Andrew Viterbi, a founder of 

Qualcomm Inc. The Viterbi method proceeds, in effect,

two symbols at a time. It starts with the set of possible 

first symbols for the sequence and possible second symbols and determines which pair makes the measured 

signal sample most likely. For example, if symbols correspond to single bits and the first symbol is 0, the Viterbi 

method compares whether a measured sample (say of 0.2 

Volts) is more likely if the next recorded bit is a 0 or a 1 

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(i.e., if the sequence begins 00 or 01).1 It then iterates the 

process with the next symbol. It ultimately produces a 

sequence of most likely symbols, and by discarding unlikely pairings as it goes along, it demands far fewer 

computations, and far less data retention, than an allpossible-sequences comparison approach. Those savings 

can make a large practical difference.

In the language of the patents, which is common to 

the field, each potential pairing of one symbol to the next 

(e.g., a first bit of 0 with a second bit of 0) is called a 

“branch.” That usage reflects how the possible symbols at 

any time of sampling can be displayed in matrix form, 

with the columns representing times of sampling (t0, t1, t2, 

etc.) and the items in each column the possible symbols at 

that time; the matrix looks like a “trellis,” and the lines

connecting pairs of symbols in adjacent columns are 

“branches.” The Viterbi method assigns to each branch a 

“branch metric,” a value representing the likelihood of the 

measured signal sample arising given the symbol pairing 

of that branch. Importantly for present purposes, a user 

1 Each “symbol” need not be a single bit, i.e., a 0 or 

1. It might instead, for example, be two bits (00, 01, 10, or 

11), thereby creating more possibilities for each symbol 

and more possible pairings of symbols. It is also possible 

to use 0, 1, and -1 as choices—for example, to represent, 

respectively, no change in polarity, a polarity change from 

north-facing-back to north-facing-forward (considering the 

direction of the read head’s scanning), and a polarity 

change from north-facing-forward to north-facing-back. 

We identify one simple choice in text for illustrative 

purposes. The parties have not identified any way in 

which the symbol choice affects the issues before us.

 

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of the method must choose one or more “branch metric 

functions” to calculate and assign each branch metric.2 

Applying a Viterbi “detector” (an implementation of 

the Viterbi method) to hard-disk drives was not an innovation of the CMU patents. Instead, the patents claim an 

improvement over existing detectors by teaching use of 

branch metric functions that are specifically adapted to 

reduce the effects of the most likely errors caused by the 

ever smaller magnetic regions used for storing data on 

hard disks. Specifically, the patents teach that (1) different functions may be used for different branches, depending in particular on the measured signal samples, and (2) 

each branch metric function can take as its input a plurality of adjacent signal samples, rather than a single sample. The former addresses signal-dependent noise, the 

latter correlated noise. 

In 1997, Drs. Kavcic and Moura filed a provisional patent application. In May 1998 they published a paper in 

the IEEE Transactions on Magnetics called CorrelationSensitive Adaptive Sequence Detection. The ’839 patent 

issued in March 2001 from an application filed in April 

1998, and the ’180 patent issued in August 2002 from a 

continuation-in-part application filed in March 1999. 

Claim 4 of the ’839 patent is representative of the asserted claims:

2 See Harris Corp. v. Ericsson Inc., 417 F.3d 1241, 

1246 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (In “Maximum Likelihood Sequence 

Estimation using the Viterbi Algorithm, . . . the receiving 

device compares distorted sequences of received symbols 

to hypothetical sequences of transmitted symbols to find 

the sequence of symbols that was most likely transmitted. 

The hypothetical sequences are distorted in accordance 

with a model of the transmission medium.”). 

 

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4. A method of determining branch metric values 

for branches of a trellis for a Viterbi-like detector, 

comprising: 

selecting a branch metric function for each of the 

branches at a certain time index from a set of signal-dependent branch metric functions; and

applying each of said selected functions to a plurality of signal samples to determine the metric 

value corresponding to the branch for which the 

applied branch metric function was selected, 

wherein each sample corresponds to a different 

sampling time instant.

’839 patent, col. 14, lines 10–19; see also ’180 patent, col. 

15, lines 39–51 (claims 1 and 2). 

Marvell, located in California, designs and sells semiconductor microchips, and it hires foreign companies to 

manufacture them. It is a major seller in the market for 

integrated circuits that control the read-write heads used 

in hard-disk drives. No later than 2001, Marvell became 

aware of the work that Drs. Kavcic and Moura had just 

done to improve the accurate detection of data recorded on 

hard disks. Based on that work, Marvell engineers, as 

they were designing chips in the competition for the next 

generation of read heads, built a simulator to use as a 

“gold standard” for testing their chip designs, and they 

paid tribute to their source in dubbing the simulator 

“Kavcic Viterbi.” Marvell engineers later designed what 

they considered a “sub-optimal” version of the Kavcic 

Viterbi for use in a new generation of Marvell chips, and 

they again acknowledged Dr. Kavcic’s work as a source, 

internally naming their design the “KavcicPP” (“PP” for 

“post-processor”). Still later, Marvell created a detector 

that its engineers recognized “turn[ed] out to be the 

original structure that Kavcic proposed in his paper.” J.A. 

46,779. From 2003 to 2012, Marvell sold 2,338,380,542 

chips built around those designs. J.A. 6.

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In 2009, CMU sued Marvell for patent infringement 

based on Marvell’s development, use, and sale of those 

chips. The parties went to trial on whether Marvell 

infringed claim 4 of the ’839 patent and claim 2 of the ’180 

patent under 35 U.S.C. § 271(a), § 271(b), or § 271(c). A 

jury found that Marvell infringed both claims under all 

three subsections. The jury also found that Marvell had 

failed to establish by clear and convincing evidence that 

either claim was anticipated or would have been obvious 

in light of the prior art.

Based on CMU’s evidence at trial, the jury awarded 

CMU $1,169,140,271 as a reasonable royalty for Marvell’s 

use of CMU’s inventions, corresponding to a 50-cents-perchip royalty on Marvell’s worldwide sales. The district 

court added $79,550,288 to bring the award up to the date 

of judgment to reflect Marvell’s continued sales of accused 

chips. Under 35 U.S.C. § 284, the court enhanced the 

damages by 23%, adding $287,198,828.60 to the award, 

based on its own assessment of the lack of objective 

reasonableness of Marvell’s defenses at trial and the 

jury’s determinations that Marvell knew of CMU’s patents and knew or should have known that its actions 

were likely to infringe (and, also, that it had no objectively 

reasonable defenses). The district court separately denied 

Marvell’s affirmative defense that CMU’s delay in bringing suit should bar pre-suit damages under the equitable 

doctrine of laches, concluding that the equities ultimately 

favored CMU because of Marvell’s copying.

Marvell appeals rulings on infringement, invalidity, 

and damages, as well as willfulness and laches. We have 

jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

DISCUSSION

We review rulings on issues not unique to patent law 

under the standards of the relevant regional circuit. InfoHold, Inc. v. Muzak LLC, 783 F.3d 1365, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 

2015). Accordingly, here we review the denial of judgCase: 14-1492 Document: 120-2 Page: 10 Filed: 08/04/2015
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ment as a matter of law de novo and must affirm if “there 

is sufficient evidence to support the verdict, drawing all 

reasonable inferences in favor of the verdict winner.” 

Blum v. Witco Chem. Corp., 829 F.2d 367, 372 (3d Cir. 

1987). We review for abuse of discretion the denial of a 

new-trial motion challenging the verdict as against the 

weight of the evidence. Rinehimer v. Cemcolift, Inc., 292 

F.3d 375, 383–84 (3d Cir. 2002). We review jury instructions de novo, asking “whether the charge, taken as a 

whole and viewed in light of the evidence, fairly and 

adequately submits the issue in the case to the jury.” 

Abrams v. Lightolier Inc., 50 F.3d 1204, 1212 (3d Cir. 

1995) (quotation marks and citation omitted). Other 

standards of review are noted as needed below.

I 

The general contours of the parties’ dispute on liability—on invalidity and infringement—are familiar ones. 

CMU developed what it believed to be a new and improved way of doing something useful—here, detecting 

recorded data accurately. In the written-description 

portions of its patents, it presented, among other things,

an optimal way to achieve its stated advance. Its claims, 

however, were not limited to the optimal embodiment. 

They claimed not only the optimal approach but also a

broader class of processes that exploit the inventors’ key 

insight to solving the problems of the prior art—here, 

dealing with the difficulty of detecting densely packed 

data on hard disks by changing the way one calculates the

branch metric functions used for retrieving that data.

Marvell does not dispute that CMU made an advance 

over the prior art or that the claims have support in the 

written description. Instead, Marvell asserts, on the one 

hand, that it never implemented CMU’s claimed methods 

because it developed a “suboptimal” solution different 

from CMU’s primary embodiment in the patents. And it 

asserts on the other hand that, if CMU’s claims are conCase: 14-1492 Document: 120-2 Page: 11 Filed: 08/04/2015
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strued beyond the optimal embodiment, they must be held 

invalid for claiming processes already known in the art.

We conclude that the jury, properly instructed on the 

applicable burdens of persuasion, could properly reject

both of Marvell’s arguments. The jury could find that the 

claims at issue are not so broad as to encompass the prior 

art at issue, but define a class of processes limited to 

those not taught or made obvious by that prior art. Nor is 

there any legal significance, standing alone, to Marvell’s 

use of a “suboptimal” solution. The jury could find that

Marvell’s work differed from a particular embodiment of 

CMU’s claims but came within the limitations set forth in 

the language of the claims, which define the scope of the 

protected invention. In other words, the jury could find 

that the claims are located at the spot on the breadth 

spectrum occupied by any valid, infringed claim: they are 

broad enough to encompass the accused processes but not 

so broad as to encompass the old or obvious.

A 

Marvell argues that there was overwhelming evidence 

that the asserted claims were anticipated by U.S. Patent 

No. 6,282,251, granted to Glen Worstell, or, in the alternative, that the claims would have been obvious in light of 

the Worstell patent. In Marvell’s view, the evidence of 

invalidity on those grounds was so strong that the jury 

could not reasonably reject it, entitling Marvell to judgment as a matter of law, and in any event the verdict 

must be set aside as against the weight of the evidence, 

requiring a new trial. Like the district court, we conclude 

otherwise—for reasons that simultaneously dispose of 

both of Marvell’s evidence-deficiency motions. 

“The burden of establishing invalidity of a patent or 

any claim thereof shall rest on the party asserting such 

invalidity,” 35 U.S.C. § 282, which the party must prove 

by clear and convincing evidence, Microsoft Corp. v. i4i 

Ltd. P’ship, 131 S. Ct. 2238, 2251–52 (2011). “AnticipaCase: 14-1492 Document: 120-2 Page: 12 Filed: 08/04/2015
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tion requires the presence in a single prior art disclosure 

of all elements of a claimed invention arranged as in the 

claim.” Connell v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 722 F.2d 1542, 

1548 (Fed. Cir. 1983). Marvell’s invalidity challenge fails, 

because the jury could properly find that Marvell failed to 

show by clear and convincing evidence that the Worstell 

patent discloses, or makes obvious, “selecting a branch 

metric function for each of the branches at a certain time 

index from a set of signal-dependent branch metric functions,” as required by claim 4 of the ’839 patent and, in 

slightly different language, by claim 2 of the ’180 patent 

(“selecting a branch metric function at a certain time 

index . . . wherein the branch metric function is selected 

from a set of signal-dependent branch metric functions”).

The district court construed “signal-dependent branch 

metric function” to mean “a branch metric function that 

accounts for the signal-dependent structure of the media 

noise.” Carnegie Mellon Univ. v. Marvell Tech. Grp., No. 

09-cv-00290, 2010 WL 3937157, at *20 (W.D. Pa. Oct. 1, 

2010) (quotation marks omitted). Under that construction, not contested here, Marvell contends that Worstell 

discloses a set of branch metric functions that account for 

the signal-dependent structure of the media noise. Anticipation depends on that contention, and so does obviousness, because Marvell makes no substantial argument for 

obviousness independent of its contention about Worstell 

on this point.

Marvell points to a brief comment in Worstell that a 

previously described branch metric function “can be 

further modified to take into account transition noise,” 

’251 patent, col. 10, lines 48–50, and argues that experts 

for both sides agreed that “transition noise” is a type of 

signal-dependent noise. The passage Marvell points to 

explains that, rather than applying an identical branch 

metric function to every branch, the function “can be 

modified by multiplying the metrics which correspond to 

transitions by a fraction which depends on the transition 

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noise standard deviation.” Id. col. 10, lines 54–56. 

(“Transition” here refers to a change in magnetic polarity, 

as might occur when a 0 is followed by a 1, or vice-versa.) 

In Marvell’s view, the passage teaches two branch metric 

functions—one for branches that do not correspond to a 

transition and another, the same as the first but multiplied by a single fraction, for branches corresponding to a 

transition. The two functions, Marvell says, form the 

required “set” of signal-dependent branch metric functions. 

The jury could reject Marvell’s position. Marvell’s expert himself noted that the branch metric function without the fraction does not account for signal-dependent 

noise and “it’s just that additional modification [i.e., the 

additional fraction] [that] takes into account the signal 

dependency.” J.A. 44,661–62. Moreover, the branch 

metric function with the fraction is a single function: the 

fraction that distinguishes it from the original, nonsignal-dependent Worstell function is a constant, not 

varying from time to time, and any branch assigned that 

function uses the same fraction-containing function. See

Carnegie Mellon Univ. v. Marvell Tech. Grp., No. 09-cv00290, 2011 WL 4527353, at *8 (W.D. Pa. Sept. 28, 2011); 

Worstell ’251 patent, col. 9, Equation 20 and accompanying text (filter tap weights Wi are constant); id. col. 10, 

lines 48–66 (additional fraction is constant); J.A. 44,957–

58 (CMU expert); Oral Argument, No. 2014-1492, at 5:25 

(Marvell agrees that additional fraction is constant). On 

this record, it was not unreasonable for the jury to conclude that Worstell discloses at most one signaldependent branch metric function—the one with the 

fraction—and not the claim-required “set.” There is no 

dispute that “set” here requires more than one such 

function, as the claims require selecting among a plurality 

of such functions at a given time index. 

When Marvell argues here that “[b]oth functions must 

be used to account for signal-dependent noise,” pointing to 

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the function without the fraction and the function with it, 

Marvell Opening Br. 36, it confirms the basis for the 

jury’s verdict. Marvell’s language confirms that the 

unmodified and modified functions are each “functions.” 

Only one, however, is signal-dependent. Marvell cannot 

describe the choice between the two options as itself the 

“function,” because that too would give Worstell only a 

single “function,” not a “set.” Accordingly, Marvell’s 

position is essentially that it is sufficient for the set collectively to account for the signal-dependent nature of the 

noise. But that is wrong under the clear claim language 

as construed, which requires each of the functions themselves, the elements in the set, to account for that noise. 

Marvell never points to any evidence that Worstell 

discloses multiple functions, each function possessing the 

required property of accounting for signal-dependent 

noise. The jury could find insufficient evidence that 

Worstell teaches or suggests what the claim requires. We 

therefore affirm the verdict of no proven invalidity.

B 

The jury found that Marvell both directly and indirectly infringed the two (method) claims at issue by 

developing, testing, and selling to its customers—notably, 

some of the world’s leading makers of hard-disk drives—

products that practice the claimed methods. Marvell rests 

its challenge to the jury’s finding solely on arguments 

about whether its chips’ operation and one of its testing 

activities meet the claim limitations. Marvell raises no 

issue about other elements of infringement, such as the 

knowledge element of indirect infringement. We reject 

Marvell’s challenges, concluding that the jury had substantial evidence to support its verdict.

1 

The jury had sufficient evidence to find that use of the 

products incorporating Marvell’s Media Noise Processor 

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(MNP) and Enhanced Media Noise Processor (EMNP) 

designs infringes CMU’s patent claims—products we may 

discuss together, Marvell not having identified differences 

between them material to the outcome. CMU presented 

substantial evidence that Marvell’s MNP and EMNP postprocessors carry out every step of the claimed methods. 

See J.A. 41,815–28 (expert testimony); J.A. 34,941–59 

(jury slides). CMU used Marvell’s internal documents to 

show that Marvell’s devices first use a traditional Viterbi 

detector (with traditional branch metric functions) to 

identify the most likely symbol sequence and then use a 

“post-processor” that recalculates branch metrics for a 

subset of the branches corresponding to the most likely 

errors. J.A. 34,941–59. Marvell’s devices calculate those 

subsequent branch metrics using functions that change

over time, i.e., they select at certain times new parameters that define a new branch metric function, and they 

apply the different functions to multiple signal samples. 

See J.A. 46,588. That essential characteristic is reflected 

in the fact, noted above, that Marvell internally named its 

post-processor the “KavcicPP” after one of CMU’s inventors. For at least that subset of branch metric calculations, therefore, CMU presented evidence that Marvell’s 

devices practiced the patents’ claims.

Marvell argues that its method is carried out in a 

post-processor and not a Viterbi detector, does not occur 

“in a ‘trellis,’” and therefore is outside the claims. Marvell Opening Br. 41–42. The parties stipulated that the 

term “branch” means “a potential transition between two 

states (nodes) immediately adjacent in time in a ‘trellis.’” 

J.A. 3179. Marvell characterizes the calculations performed by its MNP/EMNP post-processors as an evaluation of error sequences, not branch metric calculations, 

because they do not occur in a traditional Viterbi detector.

The district court’s unappealed claim construction of 

“Viterbi-like” defeats Marvell’s argument. As noted 

above, a “trellis” (a lattice whose nodes form a matrix) is 

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used as a graphical representation of the Viterbi detection 

method. A trellis diagram shows all the possible branches 

(symbol-to-symbol steps) for a given system. During 

claim construction, Marvell argued to the district court 

that the phrase “Viterbi-like” in the preamble to claim 4 

of the ’839 patent limited the claim to detectors that 

calculate a branch metric or perform “a step similar to 

calculating branch metrics” for every branch of the Viterbi 

trellis. Carnegie Mellon Univ., 2010 WL 3937157, at *22 

(quotation marks and citation omitted). It argued that 

“Viterbi-like” does not cover a post-processor that calculates a branch metric for only some, not all, branches, 

citing the fact that during prosecution CMU distinguished 

a prior-art reference that included a post-processor.

The district court rejected Marvell’s arguments and 

adopted CMU’s construction, which the parties and the 

court understood to encompass a post-processor that 

calculated some but not all branch metrics “in a trellis.” 

Carnegie Mellon Univ., 2010 WL 3937157, at *22–25. The 

district court properly concluded that CMU distinguished 

the prior-art reference during prosecution not on the 

ground that it used a post-processor but on the ground 

that its post-processor did not apply branch metric functions to a “plurality of time variant signal samples.” Id.; 

see also J.A. 41,631–32 (Dr. Kavcic testifying to same at 

trial). The court’s construction made clear, therefore, that 

claim 4 of the ’839 patent is broad enough to cover a 

method that calculates some but not all branch metrics in 

accordance with the other claim limitations, regardless of 

whether those calculations occur in a “Viterbi” detector. 

And that is true a fortiori of claim 2 of the ’180 patent, 

which does not even have the qualifier “Viterbi-like” 

before the word “detector.” 

Given that construction, CMU’s evidence establishing 

that Marvell’s post-processors carry out every step of the 

claimed methods cannot be held insufficient on the 

ground that the post-processors do not calculate metrics 

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for every branch of a trellis. Nor is the evidence made 

insufficient by Marvell’s expert testimony that the Marvell post-processor calculations do not produce branch 

metrics because they calculate only the “difference” between two branch metrics of the Viterbi trellis branches. 

J.A. 44,522–25. The parties’ stipulated construction of

“branch metric” requires simply a “numerical value of a 

‘branch,’” J.A. 3179, and CMU presented evidence that 

Marvell’s post-processors use and produce branch-specific 

“numerical values.” J.A. 41,816–22, 44,017–20, 46,587–

88, 47,924, 54,266. For those reasons, the infringement 

finding for the MNP and EMNP products must stand.

2 

The jury also had sufficient evidence to find that Marvell infringed claims through its next-generation NonLinear Detector (NLD) chips. Marvell challenges that 

finding on the ground that its NLD chips do not apply a 

branch metric function to a “plurality of signal samples” 

as required by the claims. We reject Marvell’s challenge. 

In Marvell’s NLD chips, the first stage of each branch 

is a “noise whitening filter” that takes as input multiple 

signal samples and produces a single combined output

that is then used to calculate the final branch metric. 

J.A. 48,240–41, 48,249; see also J.A. 34,984. It is undisputed that the filter calculations may vary by branch and 

with signal samples, and as Marvell’s own engineers 

recognized, applying a “different noise whitening filter for 

each branch” was “the original structure that Kavcic

proposed in his paper.” J.A. 46,779. For its NLD chips, 

Marvell may have made some changes to eliminate some 

redundancy in calculations, but it does not dispute that, 

for at least some branches, its NLD chips take multiple 

signal samples as their inputs, select parameters for the 

function applied to those samples, and produce a branch 

metric as a result. Marvell has not shown why that is not 

enough under the claims as construed. And CMU’s expert 

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carefully showed element by element that the NLD chips 

perform each of the claim-required steps. J.A. 41,847–57 

(testimony), 34,976–87 (slides). The verdict of infringement for the NLD chips therefore must stand.

3 

Finally, the jury had sufficient evidence to find that 

Marvell infringed when it used what Marvell called a 

“simulator,” notably, when it used a computer to practice 

the same methods it eventually implemented in its 

MNP/EMNP and NLD chips. Marvell challenges that 

finding on the grounds that “a simulation of a detector is 

not itself a detector” and that, in any event, its simulations did not apply branch metric functions to a plurality 

of signal samples as the claims require. Marvell Opening 

Br. 44. We reject Marvell’s challenge.

Marvell mischaracterizes the claimed invention. As 

used in the claims, the word “detector” does not refer to a 

component for sensing the magnetic forces from the hard 

disk, as Marvell suggests, a function performed by certain 

electro-magnetic components in a “read head” in a harddisk drive—shown as a separate unit from the “detector” 

in Figure 1 of the patents. The “detector” processes the 

signal samples produced by the read head from its sensing of the magnetic regions on a disk. The detector thus 

indirectly detects the most likely orientations of the 

magnetic regions (which encode data) given the signal 

samples. The jury could find that Marvell was using just 

such a “detector” in its “simulations” using a computer 

more general than special-purpose chips. 

There was, additionally, ample evidence that Marvell’s “simulations” operated on signal samples produced 

from physical hard disks in hard-disk drives. CMU 

showed that Marvell used its simulations to detect “data 

that comes from a Toshiba hard drive.” J.A. 41,883 (also 

noting similar evidence regarding Hitachi hard-disk 

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tions process “data files (copies of actual wave forms).” 

Marvell Opening Br. 44. The evidence, in short, was 

sufficient to establish that Marvell’s simulations used 

“detectors” on “signal samples.” At the same time, because it is undisputed that the simulations used branch 

metric functions, the evidence also sufficed to establish 

that the simulations applied branch metric functions to a 

plurality of signal samples. 

Contrary to Marvell’s contention, Harris Corp. v. Ericsson Inc. does not show lack of infringement here. The 

simple problem in Harris was that the claim required an 

actual “communication system,” but Harris did not prove 

that Ericsson’s actions, in “simulating” certain techniques 

(also involving Viterbi detectors), involved any actual 

communication system. A claim element was not proved 

to be present. 417 F.3d at 1256. This case sharply differs

because no claim element was missing. Here, even the 

“simulations” involved use of “signal samples.” The 

meeting of all claim elements is the critical question, not 

the use of the word “simulation,” which can mean different things in different contexts.3

3 In a single clause, when introducing its Harris argument, Marvell states that if the claims reached its 

simulations they would “cover an abstract idea not otherwise subject to patenting.” Marvell Opening Br. 44. The 

fleeting reference to “abstract idea” is not enough to raise 

an issue of subject-matter ineligibility, and Marvell’s 

actual argument following the reference rests on Harris, 

which does not address that issue. Marvell neither cites 

nor discusses either 35 U.S.C. § 101 or any case law under 

it, much less any authority finding ineligibility of an 

unconventional method, like CMU’s, for improving a 

physical process by overcoming limitations in physical 

devices—discerning more accurately what is on a physical 

recording medium from what a read head has sensed. See 

 

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II

Marvell’s remaining arguments challenge the monetary remedies given for the infringement of CMU’s patents—the damages award and the continuing royalty. 

We agree in part with Marvell’s challenges. We find error 

in the enhancement of damages and error regarding 

adherence to the territorial limits on the available remedy. We reject Marvell’s other challenges.

A 

Marvell challenges the district court’s rejection of its 

argument that the equitable defense of laches should bar

CMU’s recovery of damages for Marvell’s infringement 

pre-dating CMU’s filing of this action. Although laches 

requires proof of unreasonable, prejudicial delay in filing 

suit, “[t]he application of the defense of laches is committed to the sound discretion of the district court.” A.C. 

Aukerman Co. v. R.L. Chaides Constr. Co., 960 F.2d 1020, 

1032 (Fed. Cir. 1992) (en banc). “A court must look at all 

of the particular facts and circumstances of each case and 

weigh the equities of the parties.” Id. Here, the district 

court weighed the equities and concluded that Marvell 

was not entitled to a laches defense to pre-suit damages. 

We affirm. 

The district court conducted a thorough review following the principles of our en banc decision in Aukerman.4 

Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2354 (2014) 

(“[A]n invention is not rendered ineligible for patent 

simply because it involves an abstract concept. 

‘[A]pplication[s]’ of such concepts ‘to a new and useful 

end,’ we have said, remain eligible for patent protection.” 

(citations omitted; second and third alterations in original)).

4 CMU has preserved the contention that Aukerman should be overruled, insofar as it allows a laches 

 

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It found that CMU’s delays in not filing suit until 2009, 

after having notice of Marvell’s potential infringement as 

early as 2003, “were unreasonable and inexcusable.” 

Carnegie Mellon Univ. v. Marvell Tech. Grp., No. 09-cv00290, 2014 WL 183212, at *29 (W.D. Pa. Jan. 14, 2014). 

The district court also determined that Marvell suffered 

some evidentiary prejudice as a result of the delays, but 

rejected Marvell’s contention that it had suffered economic prejudice, finding that Marvell, for its own economic 

reasons, would have gone ahead with its infringement 

regardless, accepting the risk of liability. Id. at *29–37. 

Having found that Marvell satisfied the threshold requirements to invoke laches under Aukerman, the district 

court considered the entirety of the circumstances and

concluded that “the equities clearly favor CMU . . . rather 

than Marvell, which copied CMU’s patents consciously 

and deliberately for an entire decade.” Id. at *37.

Marvell’s challenge to that conclusion rests entirely 

on Serdarevic v. Advanced Medical Optics, Inc., 532 F.3d 

1352 (Fed. Cir. 2008), where we said that “a plaintiff 

relying on the unclean hands doctrine to defeat a defense 

of laches must show not only that the defendant engaged 

in misconduct, but moreover that the defendant’s misconduct was responsible for the plaintiff’s delay in bringing 

suit.” Id. at 1361. According to Marvell, the district court 

could not weigh CMU’s delay in bringing suit against the 

evidence of Marvell’s conscious copying without first 

defense to pre-suit damages at all, in light of Petrella v. 

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1962 (2014), a 

question currently under en banc consideration in SCA 

Hygiene Products Aktiebolag v. First Quality Baby Products, LLC, No. 13-1564, 2014 WL 7460970, at *1 (Fed. Cir. 

Dec. 30, 2014). Our affirmance of the denial of laches 

does not depend on that broader legal contention.

 

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concluding that the conscious copying caused CMU’s 

delay. Marvell overreads Serdarevic. 

The plaintiff in Serdarevic made vague allegations of 

misconduct, claiming “that the defendants’ ‘particularly 

egregious conduct’ was the omission of Serdarevic as a coinventor.” Id. (citation omitted). We concluded that those 

allegations did not rise to the level of particularly egregious conduct that would defeat an otherwise-applicable 

laches defense. We explained that, in previous disputes 

about inventorship, courts had found a defendant’s misconduct to be particularly egregious when it contributed 

in some substantial way to the plaintiff’s delay. We 

rejected the suggestion that any misconduct, including 

“the very same conduct that forms the basis for [plaintiff’s] inventorship claims,” sufficed to weigh against 

laches. Id. at 1361–62. “[I]n the context of an inventorship action,” we explained, a plaintiff must go beyond 

bare allegations of such conduct and show “that the 

defendant’s misconduct was responsible for the plaintiff’s 

delay in bringing suit.” Id. at 1361.

The holding of Serdarevic, keyed to the inventorship

context, does not undermine the district court’s rejection 

of laches in this case, based on its well-reasoned conclusion that Marvell’s blatant and prolonged copying of 

CMU’s inventions met the standard of particularly egregious conduct. Serdarevic did not involve copying, let 

alone egregious copying, and we did not hold that such 

copying, to defeat laches, must have caused the unreasonable delay. Nor does any other precedent cited by Marvell

restrict the relevance of copying. 

Indeed, the en banc court in Aukerman specifically instructed district courts to consider such copying, and it 

did so without requiring that the relevant copying have 

caused the delay: “Conscious copying may be such a factor 

weighing against the defendant . . . .” 960 F.2d at 1033; 

see also Gasser Chair Co. v. Infanti Chair Mfg. Corp., 60 

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F.3d 770, 775 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (“[T]he district court erred 

in not considering that Infanti’s copying of Gasser’s chairs 

could be egregious conduct.”). See also McIntire v. Pryor, 

173 U.S. 38, 53–55 (1899) (discussing long history of 

barring laches where defendant committed fraud, even if 

fraud not responsible for plaintiff’s delay). That approach 

is consistent with the equitable nature of the laches 

determination, considering all relevant factors once the 

threshold requirements are met. 

In this case, the district court went beyond the mere 

conclusion of conscious copying. It considered the extent 

and egregiousness of Marvell’s copying, the culpability on 

the part of CMU in delaying suit, and the ramifications

for public policy of allowing a laches claim. It did not 

abuse its discretion in concluding that the equities favored CMU and defeated Marvell’s defense. 

B 

Marvell challenges the district court’s enhancement of 

damages under 35 U.S.C. § 284, which says that “the 

court may increase the damages up to three times the 

amount found or assessed.” Where, as here, enhancement 

is not asserted to rest on the infringer’s actual knowledge 

that it was infringing, our precedent prescribes that a 

district court may enhance damages only upon proof of 

willfulness, which we have held to require “clear and 

convincing evidence that the infringer acted despite an 

objectively high likelihood that its actions constituted 

infringement of a valid patent” and “this objectivelydefined risk . . . was either known or so obvious that it 

should have been known.” In re Seagate Tech., LLC, 497 

F.3d 1360, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (en banc); see also Safeco 

Ins. Co. of Am. v. Burr, 551 U.S. 47, 57–58 (2007) (“standard civil usage” of “willful” reaches both knowing violations and those done in “reckless disregard”). We have 

held that the second requirement is a factual matter 

subject to review for substantial evidence. See SSL 

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Servs., LLC v. Citrix Sys., Inc., 769 F.3d 1073, 1090–91 

(Fed. Cir. 2014). But we also have held that the first 

requirement is not met when the infringer, whatever its 

state of mind at the time of its infringement, presents in 

the litigation a defense, including an invalidity defense, 

that is objectively reasonable (though ultimately rejected), 

and we have deemed that question a matter of law subject 

to de novo review on appeal. See Halo Electronics, Inc. v. 

Pulse Electronics, Inc., 769 F.3d 1371, 1381–83 (Fed. Cir. 

2014). Following that approach, we reverse the willfulness determination and hence the enhancement. 

1 

We begin with the findings and evidence regarding 

what Marvell knew and should have known. The jury 

found that Marvell knew of the patents before this action 

began. J.A. 34,184–85. It also found that “Marvell actually knew or should have known that its actions would 

infringe” the two claims at issue. J.A. 34,185–86. And 

the district court itself made a “finding that Marvell acted 

in a subjectively reckless manner with respect to the risk 

of infringing the subject patents.” Carnegie Mellon Univ. 

v. Marvell Tech. Grp., 986 F. Supp. 2d 574, 633 (W.D. Pa. 

2013). We reject Marvell’s contention that those findings 

cannot stand.

Marvell concedes that its engineers “evaluated Dr. 

Kavcic’s algorithm when designing the MNP” and does 

not dispute that it knew Dr. Kavcic’s work was patented. 

Marvell Opening Br. 71; see Carnegie Mellon, 986 F. 

Supp. 2d at 632 (“Marvell’s engineers worked on multiple 

projects bearing Kavcic’s name . . . .”). A January 2002 

email from Marvell’s Greg Burd noted: “Kavcic’s detection 

scheme is patented (assignee: Carnegie Mellon University, 2001).” J.A. 34,027. As indicated in Marvell’s repeated use of “Kavcic” in naming its work internally, the 

evidence showed that “Marvell’s engineers duplicated the 

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pers in their chips and simulators”; “shortly after beginning work on the Kavcic model, Mr. Burd prepared a 

preliminary write-up of the KavcicPP detector which 

referenced the work of Dr. Kavcic and Dr. Moura,” a 

write-up that “became the MNP circuit”; “Mr. Burd stated 

that he was ‘generally following the papers,’ not the 

patents, and that he ‘left it at that,’” but “the papers are 

virtually identical to what is described in the patents”; 

and “when Kavcic’s name was disassociated with the

project, there was no functional difference between the old 

and new computer codes” and “the NLD used the original 

structure proposed in Dr. Kavcic’s paper, and subsequently in the CMU Patents.” Carnegie Mellon, 986 F. Supp. 

2d at 632–33. 

Marvell’s only responses to this robust evidence are 

that it did not adopt the detailed algorithm laid out in the 

CMU papers and the written description of the CMU 

patents and that it obtained its own later patents for 

what Mr. Burd described in the provisional application as 

a “sub-optimal version of Kavcic’s detector,” J.A. 54,264. 

Marvell Opening Br. 71–72. Neither response undermines the foregoing evidence. Indeed, the weakness of 

Marvell’s responses tends to confirm the strength of the 

evidence on what Marvell knew and should have known. 

That Marvell may not have ultimately copied the patents’ preferred embodiment does not show that it was, or 

even thought it was, doing something outside CMU’s 

claims—which the evidence from Marvell’s own documents and employees indicates it simply chose to ignore. 

Similarly, as confirmed by the commonality of dominant/subordinate patents, that Marvell sought and obtained its own patents on particular detection techniques 

does not mean that those techniques, much less the 

specific accused Marvell actions, avoided the CMU patent 

claims at issue. Many patents claim products or processes 

that supplement or refine, and remain fully covered by, 

inventions claimed in others’ earlier patents. See In re 

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Kaplan, 789 F.2d 1574, 1577–78 (Fed. Cir. 1986); AbbVie 

Inc. v. Mathilda & Terence Kennedy Inst. of Rheumatology 

Trust, 764 F.3d 1366, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 2014). Thus, the 

facts that Marvell sought and obtained patents gave it no 

defense to patent infringement, see 35 U.S.C. § 282(b), 

and did not establish a good-faith basis for believing that 

it was not infringing. 

2 

We agree with Marvell, however, that the enhancement of damages must be reversed because the invalidity 

defense it presented in this litigation was objectively 

reasonable. Although we conclude that a jury could 

properly reject Marvell’s invalidity defenses based on 

Worstell, there was enough uncertainty about what 

Worstell discloses and what CMU’s claims require that we 

cannot say that the defenses were objectively unreasonable. In this regard, it is significant, though hardly dispositive, that the district court itself referred to Marvell’s 

invalidity defense as a “close call” at the summaryjudgment stage. Carnegie Mellon Univ. v. Marvell Tech. 

Grp., No. 09-cv-00290, 2011 WL 4527353, at *1 (W.D. Pa. 

Sept. 28, 2011). We do not reprise the analysis of invalidity set forth above. That analysis, we conclude, shows 

simultaneously that the jury verdict rejecting the invalidity defense must be upheld and that Marvell’s position on 

invalidity was substantial enough that our enhancement 

standard is not met.

The district court, in concluding that the first Seagate 

requirement is met, relied on several premises that are 

contrary to governing law. The court reasoned that, 

because invalidity “was a factual determination to be 

made in this case[,] . . . the reasonableness of reliance on 

such invalidity defense was also the prerogative of the 

jury.” Carnegie Mellon, 986 F. Supp. 2d at 630–31 (footnote omitted). That view contradicts our standard of de 

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novo review of objective reasonableness as a legal matter 

based on underlying facts. 

The court also relied on the proposition that it mattered whether Marvell developed its invalidity defense

when undertaking its infringing activity. It said: “[I]n 

order for Marvell to have a ‘reasonable defense’ to infringement for the time period of 2001–2009, there needs 

to be some proof that the basis for such invalidity defense 

was known to the infringers or even the person having 

ordinary skill in the art.” Id. at 630. The court stated 

that “Marvell proffered no evidence that anyone at Marvell knew of the Worstell Patent from 2001 until this 

litigation began in 2009,” adding: “Even if the Court 

concluded that Marvell has now put forth a reasonable 

defense to infringement that has been developed during 

litigation, such a determination would not be dispositive.” 

Id. But our precedent is to the contrary. “The state of 

mind of the accused infringer is not relevant to th[e] 

objective inquiry” into the risk of liability to the defendant 

necessary for a finding of recklessness. Seagate, 497 F.3d 

at 1371. On that basis we have repeatedly assessed 

objective reasonableness of a defense without requiring 

that the infringer had the defense in mind before the 

litigation. See Halo, 769 F.3d at 1381–83; Bard Peripheral Vascular, Inc. v. W.L. Gore & Assocs., Inc., 682 F.3d 

1003, 1008 (Fed. Cir. 2012); iLOR, LLC v. Google, Inc., 

631 F.3d 1372, 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2011); DePuy Spine, Inc. v. 

Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Inc., 567 F.3d 1314, 1336 (Fed. 

Cir. 2009).

The district court further seemed to confine its consideration of Marvell’s defenses to those raised at trial, 

excluding arguments presented earlier in the litigation, 

such as at the summary-judgment stage. Carnegie 

Mellon, 986 F. Supp. 2d at 630–31 (“To the extent that 

Marvell again believes the Court should deny a finding of 

willfulness on the basis that the earlier defenses that 

were not presented to the jury were reasonable, the Court 

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disagrees. If Marvell thought that any of those ‘other’ 

defenses were reasonable, it should have presented them 

to the ultimate finder of fact, the jury.”). We see no basis 

for that distinction. A defense may be objectively reasonable and yet properly not be presented to the jury; examples include legal arguments such as claim-construction 

arguments, but there may be other defenses that are 

objectively reasonable yet not make the cut for consuming 

the precious time and attention of the jury. Thus, we 

have said that whether an infringer faced an objectively 

high risk of liability should be “determined by the record 

developed in the infringement proceeding,” Seagate, 497 

F.3d at 1371, and that the record is not limited to evidence presented to the jury.

On the full record here, we conclude that Marvell had

an objectively reasonable defense to infringement. The 

district court’s reasoning does not convince us otherwise. 

We therefore reverse the enhancement of damages. 

C 

Marvell presents several challenges to the jury’s royalty determinations. It argues that the district court 

abused its discretion in not excluding the testimony of 

CMU’s damages expert, criticizing her qualifications and 

her methodology. It argues that the evidence precluded a 

royalty measured by 50 cents per unit and required a flat, 

lump-sum fee not metered by the extent of benefit to 

Marvell. And it argues that award improperly includes 

“foreign chips in the royalty base.” Marvell Opening Br. 

52. We reject all the challenges except the last: on that 

issue we conclude that a partial new trial is needed, as to 

those chips which never entered the United States, to 

determine whether their “sale” can be said to have occurred in the United States. With that exception, which 

warrants a partial remand, we affirm (a) the judgment of 

damages to the extent of $278,406,045.50, consisting of 50 

cents per chip for the 556,812,091 chips that the jury 

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could find were imported for use in the United States, (b)

the judgment bringing the royalty award forward in the 

supplemental damages, though the amount must for the 

time being be adjusted by the district judge on remand to 

chips imported, using a reliable estimate of chips imported (based on the method of estimating imports presented 

to the jury or another reliable method), and (c) the order 

of an ongoing royalty of 50 cents per chip, also to be

limited on remand, pending a new trial on the remanded 

issue, to a reliable estimate of chips imported. 

1 

Marvell challenges the admission of the testimony of 

CMU’s damages expert, Ms. Lawton, because in its view 

she lacks relevant expertise and disregarded evidence 

that Marvell believes favored its much lower damages 

estimate. Ms. Lawton filed voluminous, thorough, clearly 

structured, comprehensively documented expert reports. 

The district court conducted an extended live preview of 

her testimony and determined that she was qualified and 

her methodology was sound. We review the admission of 

her testimony for an abuse of discretion. General Elec. 

Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 138 (1997). We find no abuse.

Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence sets standards for an expert witness’s qualification and the substance of the expert’s testimony. As relevant here, the 

witness must be “qualified as an expert by knowledge, 

skill, experience, training, or education.” The testimony 

must be “based on sufficient facts or data” and be “the 

product of reliable principles and methods” that the 

expert “reliably applie[s] . . . to the facts of the case.” The 

latter requirements are rooted in Daubert v. Merrell Dow 

Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 509 U.S. 579, 592–93 (1993) (requiring that “the expert’s opinion will have a reliable 

basis in the knowledge and experience of his discipline . . . properly . . . applied to the facts in issue”). 

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Ms. Lawton does not have a Ph.D. or a traditional academic appointment, but those credentials are not required by Rule 702’s qualification standard. Indeed, even 

“education” and “training” impose no such requirement, 

and the Rule provides for “knowledge,” “skill,” and “experience” as other bases for qualification. The Third Circuit 

allows “a broad range of knowledge, skills, and training to 

qualify an expert” as such. Pineda v. Ford Motor Co., 520 

F.3d 237, 244 (3d Cir. 2008) (quotation marks and citation 

omitted). That approach is consistent with the postDaubert emphasis on the substance of expert testimony 

and with the facts that experience can be gained in many 

venues and that knowledge can be demonstrated by 

mastery displayed in an expert’s analysis and responses 

to questioning about it.

The district court acted well within its discretion in 

rejecting Marvell’s attacks on Ms. Lawton’s qualifications 

and general methodology. The court considered Ms. 

Lawton’s “range of knowledge, skills, and training” and, 

like the many other courts before which she has appeared, 

deemed her qualified to testify as an expert on reasonable-royalty damages. See Carnegie Mellon Univ. v. Marvell Tech. Grp., No. 09-cv-00290, 2012 WL 6562221, at *14

(W.D. Pa. Dec. 15, 2012). The court also examined the 

basis for Ms. Lawton’s testimony by reviewing her lengthy 

expert report, two updated expert reports, and a supplemental report and by holding an extended Daubert hearing at which CMU’s counsel “essentially conducted his 

direct examination of [Ms.] Lawton.” Id. at *1. For areas 

outside her expertise, such as details unique to the semiconductor industry, the district court properly concluded 

that Ms. Lawton could, indeed must, rely upon CMU’s 

other experts having such industry-specific experience. 

Id. at *14; see Apple Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., 757 F.3d 1286, 

1321 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (“Experts routinely rely upon other 

experts hired by the party they represent for expertise 

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vant here by Williamson v. Citrix Online, LLC, No. 2013-

1130, 2015 WL 3687459, at *6 (Fed. Cir. June 16, 2015) 

(en banc in part). And, as noted more fully below, Ms. 

Lawton in fact took reasoned account of the evidence that 

Marvell says that she “disregarded.” Marvell Opening Br. 

47. In these circumstances, the district court did not err, 

as to either qualifications or substantive methodology, in 

admitting Ms. Lawton’s testimony.

2 

Marvell’s challenge to the jury’s award of a 50-centper-chip royalty is similarly unfounded—whether this 

challenge is viewed as going to evidentiary sufficiency, 

weight, or admissibility. Marvell challenges both the 

choice of a per-unit license instead of a flat fee and the 

rate of the per-unit license. We see no reversible error in 

either respect.

35 U.S.C. § 284 guarantees to a patent holder “in no 

event less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of 

the invention by the infringer.” One approach to calculating a reasonable royalty that measures the value of the 

use of the patented technology posits a “hypothetical 

negotiation” between a “willing licensor” and a “willing 

licensee” “to ascertain the royalty upon which the parties 

would have agreed had they successfully negotiated an 

agreement just before infringement began.” Lucent 

Techs., Inc. v. Gateway, Inc., 580 F.3d 1301, 1324–25 

(Fed. Cir. 2009). That approach, like any reconstruction 

of the hypothetical world in which the infringer did not 

actually infringe but negotiated in advance for authority 

to practice the patents, does not require “mathematical 

exactness,” but a “reasonable approximation” under the 

circumstances. See Dowagiac Mfg. Co. v. Minn. Moline 

Plow Co., 235 U.S. 641, 647 (1915). 

A key inquiry in the analysis is what it would have 

been worth to the defendant, as it saw things at the time, 

to obtain the authority to use the patented technology, 

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considering the benefits it would expect to receive from 

using the technology and the alternatives it might have 

pursued. See AstraZeneca AB v. Apotex Corp., 782 F.3d 

1324, 1334–35 (Fed. Cir. 2015). Thus, a “basic premise of 

the hypothetical negotiation” is “the opportunity for 

making substantial profits if the two sides [are] willing to 

join forces” by arriving at a license of the technology. 

Gaylord v. United States, 777 F.3d 1363, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 

2015) (discussing reasonable royalty damages in a copyright suit). At the same time, “[t]he economic relationship 

between the patented method and non-infringing alternative methods, of necessity, would limit the hypothetical 

negotiation.” Riles v. Shell Expl. & Prod. Co., 298 F.3d 

1302, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2002); see Aqua Shield v. Inter Pool 

Cover Team, 774 F.3d 766, 771 & n.1 (Fed. Cir. 2014). 

In the determination of what the negotiation over opportunities and alternatives would have looked like, “the

nature of the invention, its utility and advantages, and 

the extent of the use involved” are important considerations. Dowagiac, 235 U.S. at 648. Past licensing practices of the parties and licenses for similar technology in the 

industry may be useful evidence. But such evidentiary 

use must take careful account of any “economically relevant differences between the circumstances of those 

licenses and the circumstances of the matter in litigation.” 

Gaylord, 777 F.3d at 1368; see Ericsson, Inc. v. D-Link 

Sys., Inc., 773 F.3d 1201, 1227–28 (Fed. Cir. 2014); VirnetX, Inc. v. Cisco Sys., Inc., 767 F.3d 1308, 1330–31 (Fed. 

Cir. 2014); Finjan, Inc. v. Secure Computing Corp., 626 

F.3d 1197, 1211–12 (Fed. Cir. 2010). 

This court has noted the common (not universal) economic justifications for using per-unit royalties for measuring the value of use of a technology: doing so ties 

compensation paid to revealed marketplace success, 

minimizing under- and over-payment risks from lumpsum payments agreed to in advance. Lucent, 580 F.3d at 

1325–26; see Gaylord, 777 F.3d at 1369. In common-sense 

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terms, a per-unit royalty here allowed Marvell’s payments 

to vary with the sales its infringing activity produced, 

which are a good way of valuing what it was worth to 

Marvell to engage in that activity. Marvell nevertheless 

contends that the evidence of the parties’ past practices 

compels a finding that the parties would have agreed to a 

flat fee, not a per-unit royalty. But because CMU presented sufficient evidence pointing to “economically 

relevant differences” between those past practices and the 

circumstances of the negotiation here, neither CMU’s 

expert nor the jury was required to agree with Marvell. 

Although Marvell points to three lump-sum license 

agreements that CMU granted to others for permission to 

practice these patents, CMU explained to the jury that 

the licensees in each of those instances had longstanding, 

collaborative research partnerships with CMU and had 

invested substantial sums over the years in CMU’s harddisk-drive focused research. Significantly, those licenses 

were granted before CMU ever developed the patentable 

technology; the licensees gave CMU money with no guarantee that any usable technology would result, sharing 

the costs of uncertain research in the hope of a future 

potential benefit. CMU likewise offered sound economic 

reasons to distinguish the other licensing example Marvell relies on—an offer to Intel to grant it, in return for a 

lump-sum payment, a license to a portfolio of patents that 

included one of the patents at issue here. Unlike Marvell, 

Intel was a longstanding partner of CMU’s, contributing

substantial funds over the years to CMU’s research 

efforts. And Intel was not in the read-channel business; 

CMU sought to license its patents to Intel to get its 

“stamp of approval” as a boost to its other licensing efforts. J.A. 41,299–300. In short, there was sufficient 

evidence to find that a royalty—by which the total dollar 

(but not per-unit) amount of Marvell’s payment would 

increase with the volume of sales it made based on its use 

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ment mechanism within the confines of the hypothetical 

negotiation here. 

There also was ample evidence that 50 cents was an 

appropriate amount for the per-chip license. CMU offered 

evidence that, at the time of the hypothetical negotiation, 

Marvell had no alternative to CMU’s technology, a conclusion Marvell has not disputed here. E.g., J.A. 42,127 

(CMU’s industry expert testifying that it was “life or 

death” for Marvell to use CMU’s technology). There is 

evidence too, after the fact but still relevant, that CMU’s 

technology is so significant that it is used industry-wide. 

J.A. 42,121, 42,127. At the time of the hypothetical

negotiation, Marvell faced strong market pressure to 

improve the performance of its chips, and testimony and 

internal documents showed (in sometimes-dramatic 

language) that its previous attempt to produce a new 

design was failing because the resulting chips produced 

excessive heat. Finally, the evidence supported a finding 

that, if Marvell could use CMU’s technology, it could pay 

CMU 50 cents per chip and still meet its reasonable profit 

goal—indeed, it would end up keeping upwards of three 

quarters of the per-chip profit. J.A. 43,325–27. 

On the evidence presented at trial, the jury could 

properly find that a royalty of 50 cents per chip reasonably valued Marvell’s use of CMU’s technology and would 

have been a good deal in the hypothetical negotiation. 

Accordingly, subject only to the legal constraint based on 

territorial limits, discussed next, the jury’s royalty determination must stand. 

3 

What remains is Marvell’s invocation of the general 

bar on extraterritorial application of our patent laws to 

challenge the inclusion in the (past and ongoing) royalty 

base of all of the chips resulting from Marvell’s “infringing” use of the patented methods that Marvell sold, 

worldwide. Specifically, Marvell contends that the disCase: 14-1492 Document: 120-2 Page: 35 Filed: 08/04/2015
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trict court “erred in denying JMOL (and new trial or 

remittitur) striking the portion of the damages award 

that rested on sales of foreign chips that were manufactured, sold, and used abroad without ever entering the 

United States.” Marvell Opening Br. 52. That contention, notably, is limited, and appropriately so: Marvell 

makes no meaningful extraterritoriality argument 

against—and we see no problem with—applying the 

royalty rate to chips that do enter the United States. But 

there is a potential problem with including the chips 

made and delivered abroad, and never imported into the 

United States, unless those chips can fairly be said to 

have been sold here. That question requires a remand.

a. We begin with the governing law. The Supreme 

Court has confirmed that the patent laws, like other laws, 

are to be understood against a background presumption 

against extraterritorial reach. Microsoft Corp. v. AT&T 

Corp., 550 U.S. 437, 454 (2007); Deepsouth Packing Co. v. 

Laitram Corp., 406 U.S. 518, 531 (1972) (superseded by 

statute, see Microsoft, 55 U.S. at 442–45); Halo, 769 F.3d 

at 1378–81; see Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petro. Co., 133 S. 

Ct. 1659, 1669 (2013) (similar principle applied to Alien 

Tort Statute); Morrison v. Nat’l Australia Bank Ltd., 561 

U.S. 247, 255 (2010) (Securities Exchange Act). The 

background principle applies not just to identifying the 

conduct that will be deemed infringing but also to assessing the damages that are to be imposed for domestic 

liability-creating conduct. Power Integrations, Inc. v. 

Fairchild Semiconductor Int’l, Inc., 711 F.3d 1348, 1371–

72 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (applying principle in lost-profits case, 

precluding damages for certain lost foreign sales); see also 

WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp., No. 2013-

1527, 2015 WL 4032980, at *7–10 (Fed. Cir. July 2, 2015) 

(rejecting lost-profits damages as improperly based on 

foreign use in case under 35 U.S.C. § 271(f)(2)). 

Domestic actions often have extraterritorial effects, 

and foreign actions domestic connections. Two sovereigns 

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often might be able to apply their laws to closely related 

aspects of what amount to an integrated economic activity—such as making something one place and selling it 

elsewhere, or selling something one place to be put to 

essentially its only use elsewhere. What constitutes a 

territorial connection that brings an action within the 

reach of a United States statute must ultimately be 

determined by examining the “ ‘focus’ of congressional 

concern” in the particular statute. Morrison, 561 U.S. at 

266–67. 

For the present context, we think that § 271(a) provides the basis for drawing the needed line. It states a 

clear definition of what conduct Congress intended to 

reach—making or using or selling in the United States or 

importing into the United States, even if one or more of 

those activities also occur abroad.5 Where a physical 

product is being employed to measure damages for the 

infringing use of patented methods, we conclude, territoriality is satisfied when and only when any one of those 

domestic actions for that unit (e.g., sale) is proved to be 

present, even if others of the listed activities for that unit 

(e.g., making, using) take place abroad. Significantly, 

once one extends the extraterritoriality principle to confining how damages are calculated, it makes no sense to 

5 35 U.S.C. § 271(a) provides: “Except as otherwise 

provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, 

uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within 

the United States or imports into the United States any 

patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, 

infringes the patent.” We need not separately discuss 

“offers to sell,” which, we have held, requires a United 

States location for the sale that is offered, not for the 

offer. See Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, Inc. v. 

Maersk Contractors USA, Inc., 617 F.3d 1296, 1309 (Fed. 

Cir. 2010).

 

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insist that the action respecting the product being used 

for measurement itself be an infringing action. Thus, 

here the claim is a method claim, but the damagesmeasuring product practices the method in its normal 

intended use, cf. Quanta Computer, Inc. v. LG Electronics, 

Inc., 553 U.S. 617 (2008) (applying exhaustion to sale of 

unit that sufficiently embodies a method claim); and the 

hypothetical negotiation would have employed the number of units sold to measure the value of the method’s 

domestic use (before production and after), as discussed 

above. In these circumstances, the inquiry is whether any 

of the § 271(a)-listed activities with respect to that product occur domestically. 

This approach accords with precedent. In Goulds’ 

Manufacturing Co. v. Cowing, 105 U.S. 253 (1881), the 

Supreme Court approved an award, based on an accounting of the defendant’s profits, reaching units made in the 

United States though some were to be used only abroad. 

Id. at 256. In Railroad Dynamics, Inc. v. A. Stucki Co., 

727 F.2d 1506 (Fed. Cir. 1984), this court held that a 

royalty award could reach units made in the United 

States—valued at their sale price—regardless of whether 

they were sold abroad. Id. at 1519. On the other hand, in

Power Integrations, we rejected a claim to lost-profits 

damages based on the defendant’s “entirely extraterritorial production, use, or sale of an invention patented in 

the United States,” pointing to § 271(a). 711 F.3d at 

1371–72; see also WesternGeco, 2015 WL 4032908, at *7–

10 (rejecting foreign use as basis for lost-profits damages). 

There are significant conceptual differences between 

different measures of monetary compensation for infringement—including between what agreement the 

parties would have reached to value a defendant’s use of 

the patentee’s technology (reasonable royalty) and what 

amount of otherwise-made profits, based on sales at 

certain prices, the patentee lost as a result of the defendant’s use of the patentee’s technology (lost profits). See

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AstraZeneca, 782 F.3d at 1334–35; Warsaw Orthopedic, 

Inc. v. NuVasive, Inc., 778 F.3d 1365, 1377 (Fed. Cir. 

2015). But in the respect that is crucial here, we think 

that there is a related constraint. In the lost-profits 

context, this court indicated in Power Integrations that, 

where the direct measure of damages was foreign activity

(i.e., making, using, selling outside § 271(a)), it was not 

enough, given the required strength of the presumption 

against extraterritoriality, that the damages-measuring 

foreign activity have been factually caused, in the ordinary sense, by domestic activity constituting infringement 

under § 271(a). 711 F.3d at 1371–72. We think that the 

presumption against extraterritoriality, to be given its 

due, requires something similar in the present royalty 

setting. Although all of Marvell’s sales are strongly 

enough tied to its domestic infringement as a causation 

matter to have been part of the hypothetical-negotiation 

agreement, that conclusion is not enough to use the sales 

as a direct measure of the royalty except as to sales that 

are domestic (where there is no domestic making or using 

and no importing). As a practical matter, given the ease 

of finding cross-border causal connections, anything less 

would make too little of the presumption against extraterritoriality that must inform our application of the patent 

laws to damages. See Morrison, 130 S. Ct. at 2884 (“[I]t 

is . . . a quite valid assertion . . . that that presumption 

here (as often) is not self-evidently dispositive, but its 

application requires further analysis. For it is a rare case 

of prohibited extraterritorial application that lacks all

contact with the territory of the United States. But the 

presumption against extraterritorial application would be 

a craven watchdog indeed if it retreated to its kennel 

whenever some domestic activity is involved in the case.”).

b. Marvell implicitly recognizes the significance of the 

line for this case when it effectively limits its challenge to 

inclusion in the royalty base of chips that were “manufactured, sold, and used abroad without ever entering the 

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United States.” Marvell Opening Br. 52; id. at 55 (“total 

sales are an impermissible measure of damages because 

they correlate with the number of chips used worldwide, 

and thus do not estimate use of the patented method in 

the United States”); id. at 58 (making a similar argument against the jury instruction). In any event, we see 

no extraterritoriality bar to including within the royalty 

base those chips which were imported into the United 

States for use in the United States. Section 271(a) makes 

clear that Congress meant to reach such “import[ation]”

and “use[]” as domestic conduct. And we have been 

presented no basis on which to deem legally insufficient, 

or of deficient weight for new-trial purposes, the evidence 

CMU submitted to the jury, based on industry data 

sources, of how many of Marvell’s hard-drive chips were 

imported into the United States.

We therefore deny JMOL as to the royalty based on 

those chips. We also deny a new trial as to royalties 

based on those chips. Marvell’s claim of error in the jury 

instructions affects only royalties based on chips whose 

inclusion depends entirely on the location of sale. We 

therefore affirm the judgment insofar as the royalty rests 

on imported chips. The amount is certain (stated above) 

up to the close of the damages period before the jury. On 

the other hand, a recalculation by the district judge is 

needed to confine the supplemental damages to such chips 

(pending a retrial on the remaining-chip issue), and a 

similar narrowing is needed for the collection of ongoing 

royalties (pending retrial). 

c. As to the remaining chips, avoiding extraterritoriality in relying on those chips in the royalty base depends 

here on whether they were sold in the United States, 

there being no other applicable basis in § 271(a) to justify 

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including those chips.6 As to those chips, we draw two 

conclusions. First, Marvell is not entitled to JMOL on the 

evidence and legal arguments presented to us. Second, a 

new trial is needed to determine whether the sales are 

properly said to have been in the United States.

The standards for determining where a sale may be 

said to occur do not pinpoint a single, universally applicable fact that determines the answer, and it is not even 

settled whether a sale can have more than one location. 

See Halo, 769 F.3d at 1378–79 (collecting cases; relying in 

part on N. Am. Philips Corp. v. Am. Vending Sales, Inc., 

35 F.3d 1576, 1579 (Fed. Cir. 1994)). Places of seeming 

relevance include a place of inking the legal commitment 

to buy and sell and a place of delivery, see id.; Transocean, 

617 F.3d at 1311; cf. Norfolk & W. Ry. Co. v. Sims, 191 

U.S. 441, 447 (1903), and perhaps also a place where 

other “substantial activities of the sales transactions” 

occurred, Halo, 769 F.3d 1379 & n.1 (focusing on where 

“substantial activities of the sales transactions” occurred, 

but declining to decide whether the location of contract 

formation on the facts of that case would have established 

a sales location). At this point, we do not settle on a legal 

definition or even to say whether any sale has a unique 

location. The governing legal standards have not been 

the subject of meaningful briefing here. Identifying those 

standards, along with relevant factual development, is 

better undertaken in the remand we order, in part because further factual development may narrow the legal 

issues actually requiring decision. At present, we do not 

have a full understanding of, among other things, what a 

“design win” meant legally and practically, how such a 

“design win” in the United States in this case compares 

6 For the ongoing royalty, the question is a presentand future-tense question. For simplicity, we refer just to 

the past in our discussion.

 

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with the activities that occurred in the United States in 

Halo (which were insufficient), and where specific chip 

orders were negotiated and made final. Until fuller 

exploration of factual and legal issues occurs on remand, 

it is premature to rule on whether sales occurred in the 

United States for the chips at issue. 

We do hold that, on the arguments presented to us,

Marvell is not entitled to JMOL that the sales did not

occur in the United States. The district court explained 

that Marvell had the opportunity to present evidence at 

trial that the sales took place only abroad and simply 

failed to do so. Carnegie Mellon, 986 F. Supp. 2d at 644. 

The court concluded that the record made at trial, including but not limited to a joint stipulation about the sales 

process, permitted the “jury to find that the sales occurred 

in the United States.” Id. at 645, 646. We cannot conclude otherwise on the record here and on the limited 

effort Marvell has made to develop legal arguments about 

sale-location standards. 

Chip designers like Marvell sell customized chips with 

designs specifically tailored for incorporating into customers’ products. J.A. 42,123–24 (Marvell VP of sales: 

“[E]very chip that Marvell designs for a customer is 

specifically aimed for that particular customer. It’s not, 

cannot be sold to the, you know, in the general market.”). 

Because of the customized nature of the chips, designers 

and potential customers put themselves through a 

lengthy “sales cycle,” involving extensive joint work over 

several years, before any sale is made and chips enter 

mass production. Only at the end of that sales cycle, if 

the chip designer is successful, does it secure a “design 

win,” but that win generally results in a customer’s exclusive use of that designer’s customized chip for a certain 

period, amounting to tens or hundreds of millions of chips 

over several years. J.A. 43,654–55 (parties’ joint stipulation on the sales cycle); see J.A. 44,426 (executive at 

Western Digital testifying that when he “recommend[ed] 

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that Marvell be selected as the read chip channel supplier,” Marvell would become “the exclusive read chip channel supplier”). One executive from a now-defunct chip 

maker called the industry a “winner takes all business.” 

J.A. 42,121. 

Marvell’s facilities are in northern California, and 

CMU’s industry expert, Dr. Bajorek, showed that “with 

the exception of the chip making . . . all the activities 

related to designing, simulating, testing, evaluating, 

qualifying the chips by Marvell as well as by its customers 

occur[ ] in the United States.” J.A. 42,159; see also J.A. 

35,075–77 (charts showing relevant activity and where it

occurred); J.A. 43,650–55 (parties’ joint stipulation). He 

also used Marvell’s records to show that Marvell, from 

California, provided potential customers with samples 

and simulations incorporating its designs. E.g., J.A. 

42,147–48; J.A. 53,570, 53,572, 53,612, 53,613. Marvell 

itself stipulated that “[d]uring [its] sales cycle, [its] engineers assist [its] customers in implementing [its] solutions into their product.” J.A. 43,654. And there was 

some evidence suggesting that specific contractual commitments for specific volumes of chips were made in the 

United States. Carnegie Mellon, 986 F. Supp. 2d at 645 

(referencing testimony that sales were “signed off on” in 

California); J.A. 42,162 (similar testimony by CMU’s 

industry expert). Marvell points us to no evidence to the 

contrary.

On this record, we cannot say that a jury could not 

find the chips to have been sold in the United States 

(perhaps not only in the United States). The parties’ chip 

stipulation, cited above, suggests a substantial level of 

sales activity by Marvell within the United States, even 

for chips manufactured, delivered, and used entirely 

abroad. That evidence is strengthened by the record 

details regarding Marvell’s contracting process, and 

Marvell has not pointed us to significant evidence that 

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curred in the United States. On this record, and the 

current set of legal arguments about “sale” standards, 

Marvell is not entitled to JMOL that the royalty base 

must exclude chips not imported into the United States.

On the other hand, we do not think that CMU is entitled to affirmance with respect to those chips. In the 

portion of the jury instructions at issue here, the district 

court first confirmed a limit on infringement liability: 

“Marvell cannot be found to have directly or indirectly 

infringed in connection with chips that are never used in 

the United States.” J.A. 45,456. It then added: “To the 

extent, however, that Marvell achieved sales resulting 

from Marvell’s alleged infringing use during the sales 

cycle, you may consider them in determining the value of 

the infringing use.” J.A. 45,456. Marvell challenges that 

instruction on the ground that it “includ[ed] sales of chips 

manufactured and sold abroad without entering the 

United States.” Marvell Opening Br. 58. 

Marvell is wrong to the extent it argues that the objected-to sentence is incorrect. The jury properly was told 

that it “may consider” any sales that resulted from the 

infringing use in order to value that use: for the reasons 

stated above, consideration of such sales was a sound part 

of determining the reasonable royalty for the infringing 

use. But Marvell is right in identifying something missing from the instructions, namely, an instruction that 

required the jury to find a domestic location of sale as to 

those chips not made or used in, or imported into, the 

United States. For those chips, but not for those which 

did enter the United States, the instructions did not 

“properly apprise[] the jury of the issues and the applicable law.” Dressler v. Busch Entertainment Corp., 143 F.3d 

778, 780 (3d Cir. 1998) (quotation marks and citation 

omitted). 

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review standards to find the omission erroneous, and we 

would find the error harmful as to those chips not made or 

used in, or imported into, the United States. See Forrest 

v. Beloit Corp., 424 F.3d 344, 349 (3d Cir. 2005) (“An error 

will be deemed harmless only if it is ‘highly probable’ that 

the error did not affect the outcome of the case.”). Marvell 

makes no meaningful argument about the jury instructions except for the non-imported chips. And CMU makes 

no meaningful argument—at most it makes a passing 

assertion—that the record effectively compelled a finding 

as to the domestic location of all of the chip sales. 

As the district court pointed out, however, Marvell did 

not properly object to the omission of an instruction

focusing on the place of sale for those chips which were 

not made or used in, or imported into, the United States. 

Carnegie Mellon, 986 F. Supp. 2d at 644–45. Marvell does 

not show otherwise on appeal. And it has pointed to no 

place in the record supporting its assertion that, before 

the time arrived for presenting proposals, objections, and 

arguments regarding jury instructions, the district court 

had declared that the location of sales was legally immaterial. Accordingly, we consider Marvell’s objection here 

only under the standard of “plain error.” See Franklin 

Prescriptions, Inc. v. New York Times Co., 424 F.3d 336, 

339–40 (3d Cir. 2005) (“Where a party fails to object

properly, we may review for ‘plain error in the instructions affecting substantial rights.’ Fed. R. Civ. P. 

51(d)(2).”). 

We think that the plain-error standard is met in the 

circumstances of this case. “Plain error review is discretionary—it should be exercised sparingly and should only 

be invoked with extreme caution in the civil context.” Id.

at 341 (internal quotation marks omitted). We are to 

determine if the error was “fundamental” and caused 

“prejudice resulting in a miscarriage of justice,” considering “the obviousness of the error, the significance of the 

interest involved, and the reputation of judicial proceedCase: 14-1492 Document: 120-2 Page: 45 Filed: 08/04/2015
CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY v. MARVELL TECHNOLOGY 

GROUP, LTD

46

ings if the error stands uncorrected.” Id. at 340–41 (internal quotation marks omitted). Here, we conclude, the 

standard is met because of the fundamental importance of 

the extraterritoriality principle; the degree of obviousness 

of the error in light of Power Integrations, decided after 

the trial in this case; and the centrality of a sale-location 

determination to satisfying the extraterritoriality principle for the bulk of the chips used for the royalty determination. That is enough for a “miscarriage of justice” 

under a rule whose function is to produce only a new trial, 

not a judgment as a matter of law for the objecting party.

We accordingly must vacate the portion of the damages award, original and supplemented, and the portion of 

the ongoing-royalty order, which apply the royalty rate to 

chips not made or used in, or imported into, the United 

States. A new trial is required to determine whether 

those chips were sold in the United States. 

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the judgment 

finding patent infringement by Marvell and rejecting 

Marvell’s invalidity defenses. We affirm the denial of 

Marvell’s laches defense. We reverse the enhancement of 

damages. We affirm the royalty awards, past and ongoing, in part, and we vacate in part and remand as described in this opinion.

No costs.

AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND 

VACATED AND REMANDED IN PART

Case: 14-1492 Document: 120-2 Page: 46 Filed: 08/04/2015