Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_11-cv-06591/USCOURTS-cand-4_11-cv-06591-10/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 35:271 Patent Infringement

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United States District Court 

Northern District of California 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 

NETFLIX, INC., 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

ROVI CORPORATION, et al., 

Defendants. 

Case No. 11-cv-6591-PJH 

ORDER DENYING MOTION FOR 

RELIEF FROM NONDISPOSITIVE 

PRETRIAL ORDER OF MAGISTRATE 

JUDGE 

 Before the court is Rovi’s motion for relief from nondispositive pretrial order of a 

Magistrate Judge, filed in response to Magistrate Judge Ryu’s order dated April 6, 2015 

(referred to as “the Order”). Rovi’s motion sets forth two objections to the Order: (1) 

“Rovi objects to the section titled ‘Netflix Hardware’ and ‘Netflix Software’ as Accused 

Instrumentalities beginning on page 5 and ending on page 8 finding Rovi may not accuse 

the Netflix service as an accused instrumentality as contrary to law,” and (2) “Rovi also 

objects to footnote 7 as contrary to law.” Rovi makes clear that it “does not object to the 

remaining portions of the Order.” 

 Starting with (1), Rovi argues that the Order “incorrectly states that ‘[i]t is clearly 

insufficient to accuse the entire Netflix service as being the instrumentality that infringes 

the ’929 patent, as it provides no meaningful notice to Netflix regarding Rovi’s theory of 

infringement.’” Dkt. 159 at 1 (citing Order at 6). Rovi argues that “[t]he Netflix service is 

the product Netflix sells,” and thus, Rovi’s identification of the accused instrumentality 

provides sufficient notice to Netflix. 

Rovi further argues that “Northern District judges have permitted parties to accuse 

Case 4:11-cv-06591-PJH Document 163 Filed 05/21/15 Page 1 of 3
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United States District Court 

Northern District of California 

a service as the accused instrumentality.” Dkt. 159 at 2. However, Rovi cites only one 

case in support of this assertion, Grecia v. Apple Inc., 2014 WL 4685195 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 

19, 2014). Rovi characterizes Grecia as “finding that identification of the ‘Sony 

Entertainment Network service’ as the accused instrumentality in conjunction with details 

provided in the contentions’ claim charts ‘provide[d] sufficient detail to put Sony on notice 

of the accused instrumentalities and how they purportedly [met] the claim limitations.’” 

Dkt. 159 at 2. 

First, even according to Rovi’s own characterization, simply identifying a service 

as the accused instrumentality, standing alone, was not found sufficient in Grecia; 

instead, the identification of the accused instrumentality was found sufficient only when 

read “in conjunction with details provided in the contentions’ claim charts.” As applied to 

this case, the Order considered not only Rovi’s identification of “Netflix 

Hardware/Software” as the accused instrumentality, but also specifically looked to Rovi’s 

claim charts for further detail, ultimately finding that “the ’929 claim chart to which Rovi 

refers suffers from the same problem: the use of the broad term ‘Netflix 

Hardware/Software to meet the claim limitations rather than a specific identification of the 

Netflix apparatus, product, device, process, method, act, or other instrumentality that 

meets each element of the asserted patent claims.” Order at 7 (emphasis added). In 

other words, whereas the Grecia claim charts provided details that sufficed to put the 

alleged infringer on notice, the claim chart in this case does “not make Rovi’s general 

identification of the Accused Instrumentalities any more specific.” 

Second, the Grecia order makes clear that the patentee provided more detail than 

Rovi has provided in this case. The patentee did not simply identify the “Sony 

Entertainment Network service” as the accused instrumentality and leave it at that. 

Instead, the patentee identified “three web services – Music Unlimited, Video Unlimited, 

and PlayStation Network” that were used to verify users’ access, “provided screenshots 

of the accused GUIs1

” and “identified the accused APIs2 as Java and RESTful,” 

 

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Case 4:11-cv-06591-PJH Document 163 Filed 05/21/15 Page 2 of 3
United States District Court 

Northern District of California 

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Case 4:11-cv-06591-PJH Document 163 Filed 05/21/15 Page 3 of 3