Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_02-cv-02060/USCOURTS-casd-3_02-cv-02060-11/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 28:1338 Patent Infringement

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28 02CV2060-B (CAB)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES INC.,

Plaintiff and Counterclaim-defendant,

v.

GATEWAY, INC. and GATEWAY

COUNTRY STORES LLC, GATEWAY

COMPANIES, INC., GATEWAY

MANUFACTURING LLC and

COWABUNGA ENTERPRISES, INC.,

Defendants and Counter-claimants,

and

MICROSOFT CORPORATION,

Intervenor and Counter-claimant,

_____________________________________

MICROSOFT CORPORATION,

Plaintiff and Counterclaim-defendant,

v.

LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES INC.,

Defendant and Counter-claimant

_____________________________________

LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES INC., 

Plaintiff,

v.

DELL, INC.,

Defendant.

_____________________________________

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Civil No: 02CV2060-B(CAB)

consolidated with

Civil No: 03CV0699-B (CAB) and

Civil No: 03CV1108-B (CAB)

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS’

MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

OF NO INFRINGEMENT OF U.S.

PATENT NO. 4,701,954

Case 3:02-cv-02060-B-MDD Document 1225 Filed 03/06/07 Page 1 of 12
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1

 These numbers do not appear in the claim but are placed in front of each element here for

ease of reference and to assist in the discussion of the steps performed in each iteration. The claim

language was otherwise taken directly from claim 1.

2

I. INTRODUCTION

Defendants Microsoft, Dell and Gateway (collectively”Defendants”) move the Court

to grant summary judgment of no literal infringement and no infringement under the

doctrine of equivalents with respect to U.S. Patent No. 4,701,954 (“the ‘954 patent”). After

considering the motion and Lucent’s opposition, the Court issued Special Interrogatories to

clarify the issues with regard to application of the doctrine of equivalents to the claims of

the ‘954 patent. The matter was heard on March 1, 2007. Having taken into consideration

the parties’ answers to the Interrogatories as well as the original briefs and the oral

arguments, for the reasons herein, Defendants’ motion should be GRANTED as to no

literal infringement and GRANTED as to no infringement under the doctrine of

equivalents.. 

II. BACKGROUND

The Group 3 litigation concerns U.S. Patent No. 4,701,954, describing and claiming

methods for digital speech codecs - devices that transform speech signals into electrical

pulses. Lucent has accused Dell, Gateway and Microsoft of infringing this patent. Claims

1, 2 and 6 are at issue; all are method claims. Claims 1 and 6 are independent claims. 

Claim 2 depends from claim 1.

Claims 1 and 6 share some overlap in their steps of the methods of forming

multipulse excitation codes for speech patterns. Each describes an iteration of steps that

must be performed in forming each pulse:

generating a multipulse excitation code having a sequence of n=1, 2, . . . , N pulses

for each successive time frame to provide prescribed coded speech pattern quality

where N is substantially independent of the pitch of the speech pattern by iteratively

forming pulses for said time frame, each pulse having a magnitude ß and a location

m within the frame in N successive iterations and each successive iteration including

the steps of; 

(1)1

 combining said time frame predictive parameter signals with said time frame

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28 3

predictive residual signals to form a signal y(n) corresponding to the time frame

speech pattern portion, 

(2) combining the excitation pulse sequence of the preceding iteration with said time

frame predictive parameter signals to form a signal z(n) corresponding to the

contribution of the preceding iteration excitation pulse sequence to the time frame

speech pattern portion, 

(3) forming a signal representative of the differences between said signal y(n)

corresponding to the time frame speech pattern portion and said signal z(n)

corresponding to the contribution of the preceding iteration excitation pulse

sequence to the time frame speech pattern portion, 

(4) comparing the current time frame signal representative of the differences

between the signal y(n) corresponding to the time frame speech pattern portion and

said signal z(n) corresponding to the contribution of the preceding iteration

excitation pulse sequence to the time frame speech pattern portion with the signal of

prescribed preceding time frames representative of the differences between said

signal y(n) corresponding to the preceding time frame speech pattern portion and

said signal z(n) corresponding to the contribution of the preceding iteration

excitation pulse sequence to the preceding time frame speech pattern portion to

generate a signal yp(n) representative of speech pattern portions of said preceding

time frames having a predetermined degree of similarity to the speech pattern

portion of the time frame, and 

(5) producing an excitation pulse of magnitude ß and location m for the present

iteration responsive to the differences between said speech pattern portion

representative signal y(n) and the sum of said signal representative of the

contribution of the preceding iteration excitation pulse sequence to the time frame

speech pattern portion and said signal yp(n) representative of similar speech pattern

portions of said preceding time frames. 

During the Markman hearing, the Court construed the claims to require that each of

the five steps (numbered 1-5 above) must each be performed in forming each pulse. 

The claims that issued in the ‘954 patent were amended from the claims that were

originally filed with the application; the amendments were made in response to rejections

made by the patent office for obviousness in view of two references Dunn and Wiggins and

for obviousness-type double patenting over U.S. Patent No. 4,472,832 in view of Wiggins

and the knowledge of one of skill in the art. Claims 1 and 6 were then amended to add the

5 steps described above that are to be performed iteratively in forming each pulse. 

The patentee explained that claims as amended could be distinguished because the

prior art found and removed signal redundancies from already formed multipulse excitation

pulse sequence, whereas the claimed invention found and removed pitch redundancies

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28 4

during the formation of each successive pulse in the multipulse sequence. The patentee

described that the claimed method did so by taking the difference between speech pattern

portion representative signal y(n) and the sum of the representative signal of the

contribution of the preceding iteration excitation pulse sequence to the time frame speech

pattern and signal yp(n) representative of similar portions of the preceding time frames.

The patentee further explained that the amended claims were not obvious over U.S.

Patent No. 4,472,832 and the cited art because this combination did not suggest pitch

redundancy removal in the iterative process of forming multipulse sequences as claimed.

According to the patentee, claim 1 set forth two steps (formation of the similarity signal 

yp(n) and producing an excitation pulse of magnitude ß and location m) that were

preformed during the iteration and differed from the art. The claims with the added five

step iteration issued in the ‘954 patent.

Lucent now accuses two codecs in Microsoft’s software of infringing claims 1, 2

and 6 of the ‘954 patent. These codecs are Intel G.723.1 and TrueSpeech. Defendants now

move the court for summary judgement of no infringement under the theories of literal

infringement and doctrine of equivalents.

III. DISCUSSION

A. STANDARD OF LAW

Summary judgment is appropriate if the “pleadings, depositions, answers to

interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there

is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment

as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e) (West 2006). A dispute about a material fact is

genuine “if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the

nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). In

considering the motion, the court must examine all the evidence in the light most favorable

to the non-moving party and “all justifiable inferences are to be drawn in his favor.” 

Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255, 257 (1986). 

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28 5

When the moving party does not bear the burden of proof, summary judgment is

warranted by demonstration of an absence of facts to support the non-moving party’s case. 

” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 325 (1986). Summary judgment must be granted

if the party responding to the motion fails “to make a sufficient showing on an essential

element of her case with respect to which she has the burden of proof.” Id. at 323. 

B. ANALYSIS

1. Literal Infringement

“Literal infringement of a claim exists when every limitation recited in the claim is

found in the accused device, i.e., when the properly construed claim reads on the accused

device exactly.” Cole v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 102 F.3d 524, 532 (Fed. Cir. 1996).

Defendants argue that the codecs cannot literally infringe the claims of the ‘954

patent because they do not perform all of steps 1-5 in forming each pulse. Lucent’s

position rests on the basis that if the Court’s construction simply requires that the results of

the five steps must be “utilized”in forming each pulse but not necessarily performed each

time a pulse is formed, e.g., if they are done once and then used in further iterations, then

the accused devices literally satisfy the claims. However, to the extent these steps must be

repeated in calculating each pulse position and amplitude then infringement must be

determined under the doctrine of equivalents. 

The Court’s claim construction construes the phrase “each successive iteration

including the steps of” to mean “all of the steps following this clause must each be

performed in forming each pulse.” This construction leaves no room for the interpretation

that one or more of the steps is performed in one iteration and then “used” in subsequent

iterations without then performing the step again in the next round. The construction

explicitly requires that each of the five steps is actually performed in each round. 

Therefore, given that Lucent has presented no evidence that would indicate the accused

devices literally perform each of the five steps in forming each pulse, there is no genuine

issue of material fact and as a matter of law, the accused devices do not literally infringe

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28 6

the ‘954 patent. Therefore, as to literal infringement, Defendants’ motion is GRANTED.

2. Doctrine of Equivalents

Defendants also move the Court for summary judgment that the accused products do

not infringe under the doctrine of equivalents. “Where a claim does not literally read on an

accused device because one or more limitations of the claim are not met exactly,

infringement may, nevertheless, be found if such limitations are satisfied equivalently. The

accused device may then be said to perform substantially the same overall work to achieve

substantially the same overall result by substantially the same means.” Johnston v. IVAC

Corp., 885 F.2d 1574, 1580-81 (Fed. Cir. 1989).

The Court determines the applicability of the doctrine of equivalents and the limits

of the scope of this doctrine to the claims. Glaxo Wellcome, Inc. v. Impax Laboratories,

Inc., 356 F.3d 1348, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (“Prosecution history estoppel as a limit on the

doctrine of equivalents presents a question of law.”); Biagro Western Sales, Inc. v. Grow

More, Inc., 423 F.3d 1296, 1302 (Fed. Cir. 2005). (“whether the presumption of surrender

of subject matter has arisen and whether it has been rebutted, are questions of law to be

decided by the court.”). 

The applicability and scope of the doctrine of equivalents may be limited by the

prosecution history estoppel. Both arguments and amendments made during prosecution

each can give rise to estoppel. Deering Precision Instruments, L.L.C. v. Vector Distribution

Systems, Inc., 347 F.3d 1314, 1325-26 (Fed. Cir. 2003). 

a. Argument-based estoppel

“To invoke argument-based estoppel, the prosecution history must evince a clear

and unmistakable surrender of subject matter. ” Id. at 1326 (internal quotations and

citations omitted). This surrender is evaluated under an objective test that asks whether the

reasonable competitor would view the argument as having surrendered the subject matter. 

Pharmacia & Upjohn Co. v. Mylan Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 170 F.3d 1373, 1377 (Fed. Cir.

1999).

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2

 The standard for reviewing whether subject matter has been surrendered is from the view

point of the reasonable competitor, not one of ordinary skill in the art. Pharmacia, 170 F.3d at 1377.

7

Defendants contend that arguments made by the patentee during the prosecution of

the ‘954 patent clearly evince a surrender of methods that do not perform each of the five

steps each time a pulse is formed. They point to several statements made in response to an

office action to distinguish the claims from the prior art: “the formation of the similarity

signal yp(n) is performed on speech pattern derived signals and not from incomplete

multipulse sequence”; “producing of an excitation pulse of magnitude ß and location m” ;

“Both these steps are performed during the iteration for forming each pulse of the

multipulse sequence.” Accordingly, Defendants argue that based on these statements, a

reasonable competitor would understand that these steps (corresponding to steps 4 and 5)

must be performed each time in forming each pulse. 

According to Lucent however, the prosecution history when taken in its totality does

not support surrender. Lucent argues that a person of ordinary skill in the art would not

understand the patentee to have surrendered “a system in which frame-based calculations

are performed once per frame and subsequently used during the formation of each pulse.”2

Instead, Lucent suggests that the ‘954 invention was distinguished from the prior art by the

patentee’s assertion that redundancies are removed in the process of forming the multipulse

excitation code rather than after the code is calculated. Thus, Lucent contends that one of

skill in the art would understand that yp(n) does not vary with successive iterations and thus

the assertion that yp(n) must be recalculated in each iteration is inconsistent with the

patentee’s arguments made to distinguish over the prior art. 

In prosecution, the patentee made an explicit statement that described two steps and

then stated both steps are preformed during the iteration for forming each pulse. Even

considering the totality of the prosecution, these statements point towards a surrender. 

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While Lucent claims that the primary factor the patentee used to distinguish over the prior

art was at what point the redundancies were removed (before or after formation of the

multipulse sequence), Lucent avoids the fact that the five steps relate to how the ‘954

invention accomplished that difference. In Lucent’s favor, however, is the assertion that if

yp(n) were not recalculated in forming each pulse, it would make no difference in

comparison to the prior art and thus an objective observer would not have understood the

patentee to have surrendered that equivalent. Since all reasonable inferences must be drawn

in favor of the non-moving party Lucent, this point is sufficient to rebut a clear and

unmistakable surrender of subject matter based solely on applicant’s arguments made

during prosecution.

b. Amendment-based estoppel

Where a patentee narrows his claims for reasons of patentability, amendment-based

estoppel may apply. Festo Corp. V. Shoketsu Kinozuko Kabushiki, Co., 535 U.S. 722, 733

(2002) (Festo II)). Amendment-based estoppel imputes a surrender of subject matter by the

patentee. Deering, 347 F.3d at 1325 (“A patentee's decision to narrow his claims . . . may

be presumed to be a general disclaimer of the territory between the original claim and the

amended claim.” (quoting Festo II, 535 U.S. 722, 740 (2002)). There are three criteria

which a patentee may use to rebut the assertion that it did not surrender the accused

equivalent through its amendments: “(1) the equivalent may have been unforeseeable at the

time of the amendment; (2) the rationale underlying the amendment may bear no more than

a tangential relation to the equivalent in question; or (3) there may be some other reason

suggesting that the patentee could not reasonably be expected to have described the

insubstantial substitute in question.” Id. at 1325 (citing Festo Corp. V. Shoketsu Kinozuko

Kabushiki, Co., 344 F.3d 1359, 1369 (2003) (Festo III)). “Rebuttal of the presumption may

be subject to underlying factual issues, which may properly be decided by the court.”

Biagro Western Sales, Inc. v. Grow More, Inc., 423 F.3d 1296, 1302 (Fed. Cir. 2005).

Defendants argue first that the patentee’s addition to the claims of the five steps to

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3

 In this motion, Defendants do not dispute that the accused codecs perform step 5 in the

iteration thus the arguments focus on steps 1-4.

9

be performed in forming each pulse is a narrowing amendment that would trigger the

presumption of surrender because none of these five steps was included in the original

claims. Lucent, however, asserts that the amendment of the claims setting forth steps 1-4

indicates a frame-based calculation that does not vary with each subsequent pulse

formation, and thus would make no difference if they were calculated once or each time in

the forming of each pulse.3

 

However, there is a true difference between the original and amended claims. The

original claims only generate a sequence of signals corresponding to successive samples of

the speech pattern, divide these signals into time frames and then work with these signals in

frame-based steps. The amended claims also begin with a frame-based division but also

include the addition of a multipulse excitation code having a sequence of n=1, 2, ...N pulses

and impose five steps performed in forming each of the N pulses. These added steps would

narrow the claims because they impose additional limitations beyond the originally claimed

frame-based system. 

The prosecution history also evidences that these narrowing amendments were made

for reasons of patentability. The Examiner rejected the claims over Dunn and Wiggins and

the ‘832 patent because together these references taught frame to frame redundancy

reduction. According to the Examiner, Wiggins taught the comparison frame-to-frame and

removal of redundancy, so that when combined with either the ‘832 patent or with Dunn, it

was obvious to remove pitch redundancy frame-to-frame. In responding, the patentee

replied that contrary to Dunn, the ‘954 invention did not operate on already formed

multipulse excitation pulse sequence of a frame but removed redundancies during the

formation of each successive pulse. The patentee then submitted claim amendments which

set out this removal process in an explicit manner.

Given the narrowing amendments made for reasons of patentability, the burden falls

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to the patentee Lucent to rebut the presumption of surrender. Festo III, 344 F.3d at 1368. 

Defendants contend that Lucent cannot rebut the presumption of surrender because none of

the three criteria are present: the equivalent was not unforeseeable, the amendment was not

tangential and there was no other reason preventing the patentee from describing the

alleged equivalent in its claims. 

Both parties admit that the equivalent, a method where some of the steps are

performed outside of the iterations forming each pulse, was foreseeable. The ‘954

specification discloses at least one such embodiment. Plaintiff Lucent only appears to

claim the amendments were tangential. Here, Lucent argues that because re-calculating

each of the parameters in steps 1-4 in forming each pulse does not change the result as

compared with a method that calculates these steps only once and then uses the calculations

in forming each pulse, the amendment which demands each step be performed for each

pulse is therefore only tangential.

 “The determination of whether or not an amendment is merely tangential to the

equivalent is based on the patentee's objectively apparent reason for the narrowing

amendment . . . inquiry must be based on the intrinsic record alone and, if necessary, expert

testimony to aid in interpretation of that record.” Amgen Inc. v. Hoechst Marion Roussel,

Inc., 457 F.3d 1293, 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2006). The question thus turns to a determination of

how related (verses how peripheral) the amendment (and the accused equivalent) is to the

other amendments made to distinguish over the prior art. 

Where a particular amendment addresses the same patentability issues as other

amendments made, even where perhaps it would not have been necessary to make this

“extra” amendment, courts have found these amendments not to be tangential. See e.g.,

Warner-Jenkinson Co., Inc. v. Hilton Davis Chemical Co., 520 U.S. 17, 40-41 (U.S.1997)

(where patentee sought to distinguish his process from the cited prior art which had a pH

above 9.0, and so added a pH range of “approximately 6.0-9.0” into the claims, the lower

pH limit was presumed to have been added for reasons of patentability and amendmentCase 3:02-cv-02060-B-MDD Document 1225 Filed 03/06/07 Page 10 of 12
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based prosecution estoppel applied); Biagro Western Sales, Inc. v. Grow More, Inc., 423

F.3d 1296, 1306 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (where claims amended to include a range of fertilizer

concentration of about 30-40% weight to distinguish over prior art and an accused

equivalent had a 60% concentration, the court held that because the amendment and the

accused equivalent both related to concentration, the amendment was not tangential to the

accused equivalent). Only where the reason for the amendment and the accused equivalent

appear wholly unrelated, the amendment may be deemed tangential. See e.g., Insituform

Technologies, Inc. v. CAT Contracting, Inc., 385 F.3d 1360, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (where

prosecution history evidenced that the narrowing amendment to distinguish from a prior art

method that used a large compressor at the end of the liner but gave no indication of any

relationship between this narrowing amendment and the alleged equivalent, a multiple cup

process, the court concluded that the multiple cup aspect was tangential).

In the instant case, the prior art did not teach a method of removing redundancies

during the formation of the multipulse sequence, rather the methods of the prior art only

taught frame-to-frame removal of redundancies. The applicant distinguished its method

from the prior art by referring explicitly to the removal of the redundancies in the formation

of the multipulse excitation code. However, the amendment at issue went farther and added

not only removing redundancies during formation of the pulse but also added the limitation

that each of five steps must be performed for each pulse formed. The inclusion of these five

steps describes the method for carrying out the removal of redundancies during the pulse

formation. 

The amendment here is thus similar to the circumstances of Warner-Jenkinson and

Biagro where the amendment and the accused equivalent are not tangential because they

fall into the very subject that was at issue in the prosecution. Here, the claims of the ‘954

patent were distinguished by their ability to remove redundancies in the formation of the

multipulse sequence and the patentee added five steps in an iterative process to carry out

that distinguishing factor. Thus, the performance of these five steps in forming each pulse

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is directly related to the same subject matter and it is not tangential. 

Therefore, the presumption of surrender is not rebutted and amendment-based

estoppel applies. The estoppel imputes a surrender of any methods where one or more of

the five steps for removing redundancies are performed outside the iterative loop. Since the

accused products (Microsoft’s G.723.1 and True Speech codecs) perform a method where

steps 1-4 are performed outside the iterative loop for forming each pulse, the accused

products falls within the scope of the surrendered subjected matter that is excluded from the

application of the doctrine of equivalents as applied to the instant claims. Therefore, the

Court finds that there is no infringement under the doctrine of equivalents and GRANTS

Defendants’ motion of no infringement on this ground.

IV. CONCLUSION

For the reasons herein, Defendants’ motion for summary judgment as to no literal

infringement is GRANTED and their motion as to no infringement under the doctrine of

equivalents also is GRANTED.

IT IS SO ORDERED

DATED: March 6, 2007

Hon. Rudi M. Brewster

United States Senior District Judge

cc: Hon. Cathy Ann Bencivengo

 United States Magistrate Judge

 All Counsel of Record

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