Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-3_13-cv-04910/USCOURTS-cand-3_13-cv-04910-40/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

OPEN TEXT S.A.,

Plaintiff,

v.

BOX, INC., et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 13-cv-04910-JD 

ORDER RE OBJECTIONS TO FINAL 

JURY INSTRUCTIONS

Re: Dkt. Nos. 558, 560

This order addresses the parties’ objections to the Court’s tentative final jury instructions, 

which were filed at Dkt. No. 552. The Court will file a copy of the final jury instructions that will 

be provided to the jury along with this order.

Box has stated that it has no objection to the tentative final jury instructions, apart from 

those objections it previously made at Dkt. Nos. 417 and 471 that it did not later withdraw or 

waive. See Dkt. No. 558. The Court addresses here only Open Text’s objections filed on 

February 10, 2015. See Dkt. No. 560. The Court notes that certain objections by each party have 

been withdrawn, waived or otherwise cured in other proceedings in this case. Any post-trial 

challenges to the jury instructions need to account for those developments. 

1. Instruction No. 21 – Interpretation of Claims: Overruled. Open Text objects to 

the Court’s construction of “database,” arguing that the term should be given its 

plain and ordinary meaning. Given the fact that the Court’s construction was 

drawn from a patent cited by Open Text, which Open Text argued reflected the 

plain and ordinary meaning of “database,” Open Text is poorly situated to object to 

this construction. The Court’s reasons for construing “database” as it did are 

explained in the supplemental claim construction order. See Dkt. No. 480.

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2. Instruction No. 26 – Inducing Infringement: Overruled. Open Text’s removal 

of the model instruction’s language noting that a good faith belief that the patents 

were invalid can be a defense to induced infringement is inconsistent with current 

Federal Circuit case law, which controls despite the fact that the issue is currently 

pending before the Supreme Court. See Commil USA v. Cisco Sys., 720 F.3d 1361,

1368-69 (Fed. Cir. 2013), cert. granted, 135 S. Ct. 752 (2014). Its attempt to 

include language stating that induced infringement can be proven through 

circumstantial evidence is superfluous, because Instruction No. 8 already states that 

the jury may consider circumstantial evidence.

3. Instruction No. 28 – Enablement: Sustained. Box has done little to raise or 

develop an enablement defense. Among other omissions, Box never mentioned 

enablement as an issue in its opening statement, did not elicit testimony from any 

of its experts or witnesses on the theory, and did not claim that the asserted claims 

are not enabled in the joint pretrial statement. See Dkt. No. 390 at 8. Box’s request 

for an enablement instruction depends solely on a passing reference by Open Text’s 

expert to “something more” possibly being required by the patents. That is not 

enough to present the issue to the jury, and an enablement instruction will likely 

confuse the jury. See Ericsson, Inc. v. D-Link Sys., Inc., 773 F.3d 1201, 1234 (Fed. 

Cir. 2014) (“a court should not instruct on a proposition of law about which there is 

no competent evidence.”).

4. Instruction No. 29 – Prior Art: Sustained in part. The Court asked the parties to 

fill in a list of offered prior art references in this instruction, but the parties have 

been unable to reach agreement. Open Text seeks to omit the dates of the prior art 

references and the various documents that Box offers to show the operation of the 

Coda 5.3.10 software. The Court agrees: the dates of the prior art references and 

the relevance of the various Coda-related documents are factual issues for the jury 

to decide. The Court will use Open Text’s listing of the prior art references.

5. Instruction No. 30 – Anticipation: Open Text has a number of objections to this 

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instruction.

a. Use of multiple documents to show the operation of the Coda 5.3.10 

software: Overruled. The Court requested additional briefing on this issue, 

and found the parties’ submissions helpful. See Dkt. Nos. 550, 551. The 

briefing indicates that where the asserted prior art is a device, system, or 

method, documents and witnesses can be used as evidence of the 

characteristics of that prior art, and the Court added language to the 

instructions to that effect. See Zenith Elecs. Corp. v. PDI Comm’n Sys., 

Inc., 522 F.3d 1348, 1358-59 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (finding that public use of a 

combination of a certain model TV and speaker anticipated based on 

“schematics and testing” by expert); Unitherm Food Sys., Inc. v. SwiftEckrich, Inc., 375 F.3d 1341, 1352-54 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (relying on 

“contemporaneous correspondence, color photographs, witness testimony, 

and promotional videos” to establish characteristics of anticipating 

Unitherm process), rev’d on other grounds, 546 U.S. 394 (2006); In re 

Epstein, 32 F.3d 1559, 1563-67 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (affirming BPAI rejection 

based on post-invention abstracts describing pre-invention software);

Sonoscan, Inc. v. Sonotek, Inc., 936 F.2d 1261, 1263 (Fed. Cir. 1991) 

(“That the offered product is in fact the claimed invention may be 

established by any relevant evidence, such as memoranda, drawings, 

correspondence, and testimony of witnesses.”). Open Text does not dispute 

this general legal proposition; it argues instead that it is unclear whether the 

documents defendants cite to show the operation of Coda version 5.3.10

actually describe that version. See Dkt. No. 550. But the extent to which 

these documents describe Coda version 5.3.10 is a fact issue for the jury to 

decide. In doing so, the jury may consider the testimony of Coda’s main 

architect, Professor Mahadev Satyanarayanan, who testified that the 

architecture of Coda depicted in one of the documents did not change over 

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time, and that the Coda manual was updated to reflect the current operation 

of Coda. See Dkt. No. 553-1, 26:14-26:17, 26:19-27:02, 33:21-34:06, 

36:13-37:13. Open Text argues that this testimony is not corroborated, but 

the jury may find that the fact that Prof. Satyanarayanan’s testimony is 

consistent with the documents in other aspects is sufficient corroboration to 

accept his claim that Coda’s architecture remained constant. See CEATS, 

Inc. v. Continental Airlines, Inc., 526 Fed. App’x 966, 969-72 (Fed. Cir. 

2013) (unpublished) (explaining that corroboration calls for a “rule of 

reason” analysis and allowing consideration of inventor testimony that was 

not backed up in every respect by documents).

b. Definition of “publicly known”: Overruled. Open Text seeks to define 

“publicly known” to mean “accessible to those interested in the field and is 

sufficient to enable one of ordinary skill in the field to practice the claimed 

invention.” With respect to the latter requirement -- which requires that the 

prior art reference be enabling -- the instruction already notes that any 

written reference must allow “someone of ordinary skill in the field of 

computer programming looking at that one reference would be able to make 

and use the claimed invention.” With respect to the former requirement --

that in order to be “publicly known” a reference must be “accessible to 

those interested in the field” -- the case that Open Text cites says only that 

to be “known,” “the knowledge must be publicly accessible.” Minn. Min. & 

Mfg. Co. v. Chemque, Inc., 303 F.3d 1294, 1301 (Fed. Cir. 2002). The 

instruction already states that any prior art must be publicly known; the 

Court does not anticipate any confusion will result by not specifying that a 

reference that is “publicly known” must also be “publicly accessible.”

c. Repeating defendants’ burden of proving anticipation by clear and 

convincing evidence: Overruled. The burden of proof in proving 

invalidity is already spelled out in instruction 27, “Invalidity—Burden of 

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Proof.” There is no need to repeat it. See Biodex Corp. v. Loredan 

Biomedical, Inc., 946 F.2d 850, 854 (Fed. Cir. 1991) (holding that a party 

challenging jury instructions must “prove the jury instructions read in their 

entirety were incorrect or incomplete as given”).

d. List of defendants’ anticipation theories: Overruled. The jury can 

determine defendants’ specific anticipation theories based on the evidence 

and arguments defendants put forward at trial. There is no need to include 

them in jury instructions, which are meant to instruct the jury on the law.

6. Instruction No. 31 – Statutory Bars: Overruled. The permissibility of the jury’s 

considering defendants’ documents and testimony regarding the Coda software was 

addressed with respect to Instruction No. 30.

7. Instruction No. 32 – Obviousness: Sustained in part. The list of obviousness 

references will not include dates, for the reasons given with respect to Instruction 

No. 29. Otherwise, the objections are largely duplicative of the objections to 

Instruction No. 30, and are denied for the reasons given above.

8. Instruction No. 35: Sustained. The full list of Georgia-Pacific instructions will be 

read to the jury, as the parties believe that almost all the factors are relevant.

9. Instruction No. 36: Sustained in part. The Court will include the first paragraph

of the current instruction, as the other portions are irrelevant to this case.

10. Identification of Defendants’ Invalidity Theories and Defendants’ Burden on 

Invalidity: Overruled, for the reasons given above with respect to Instruction No. 

30.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: February 11, 2015

______________________________________

JAMES DONATO

United States District Judge

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