Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_13-cv-01300/USCOURTS-cand-4_13-cv-01300-18/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

CHRIMAR SYSTEMS INC, et al.,

Plaintiffs,

v.

CISCO SYSTEMS INC, et al.,

Defendants.

Case No. 13-cv-01300-JSW (MEJ)

REPORT & RECOMMENDATION RE: 

MOTION FOR LEAVE TO AMEND 

INFRINGEMENT CONTENTIONS

Re: Dkt. No. 257

INTRODUCTION

Pending before the Court is ChriMar Systems, Inc. d/b/a CMS Technologies and ChriMar 

Holding Company, LLC’s (collectively, “ChriMar”) Motion for Leave to Amend Infringement 

Contentions to Defendants Cisco Systems, Inc., Linksys LLC (collectively, “Cisco”), and 

Defendant Hewlett-Packard Co. (“HP”) (collectively, “Defendants”). Dkt. No 257. The matter 

has been referred to the undersigned to prepare a report and recommendation. Dkt. No. 260. 

Defendants filed an Opposition (Dkt. No. 258), and ChriMar filed a Reply (Dkt. No. 259). After 

carefully reviewing the parties’ positions, relevant legal authority, and the record in this case, the 

undersigned RECOMMENDS that the Court GRANT ChriMar’s Motion. 

BACKGROUND

On October 31, 2011, ChriMar filed this patent infringement action against Defendants, 

accusing them of infringing United States Patent No. 7,457,250 (“the ’250 Patent”). Dkt. No. 1. 

Cisco filed counterclaims on January 6, 2012 (Dkt. No. 23) and amended its counterclaims on 

December 26, 2012 (Dkt. No. 51). HP filed counterclaims on December 26, 2012. Dkt. No. 52.

The ’250 Patent describes a system wherein a central module detects a remote piece of 

Power over Ethernet (“PoE”) equipment connected on an Ethernet network. Information is 

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conveyed to the central module using the preexisting Ethernet cables that also carry normal 

network traffic. Jt. Case Mgt. Stmnt. at 3, Dkt. No 127. ChriMar’s inventions related to the ’250 

Patent improve existing technology by reducing the “Total Cost of Ownership” of office 

computers. Compl., Ex. A (copy of the ’250 Patent). Using existing network wiring and without 

necessitating a connection to alternating current power, the ’250 Patent provides a method for 

permanently identifying assets and determining when an asset has been removed from or added to 

a company network. Id. By identifying and blocking unauthorized devices connected to a 

network, the ’250 Patent improves the security of existing networks. Id. Because the ’250 Patent 

system uses only existing cabling and wiring, it is easy and inexpensive to implement in existing 

network systems. Id.

ChriMar alleges that the ’250 Patent relates to the detection scheme used by PoE 

equipment “including, but not limited to Power over Ethernet telephones, switches, wireless 

access points, routers and other devices used in wireless local area networks, and/or cameras and 

components thereof that are compliant with the [Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers 

(IEEE)] 802.3af and/or 802.3at standards.” Compl. ¶ 16. As such, it is ChriMar’s position that 

each of Defendants’ products that practices the IEEE 802.3af and/or 802.3at standards necessarily 

infringes. Id. ¶ 13. ChriMar alleges that Defendants “have been and are now directly infringing, 

and/or indirectly infringing by inducement and/or contributing to the infringement” of the ‘250 

Patent “by making, using, offering for sale, selling, importing, exporting, supplying and/or 

distributing” PoE products. Id. ¶ 16.

In their counterclaims, Defendants allege that the IEEE is a standard setting organization 

and that it amended the 802.3 standard with the 802.3af and 802.3at standards. Cisco’s First Am. 

Countercls. (“Cisco FAC”) ¶¶ 19-21; HP Countercls. ¶¶ 18-20. The IEEE has a “‘patent 

disclosure policy’ that requires participants in the standards setting process to disclose patents or 

patent applications they believe to be infringed by the practice of the proposed standard.” Cisco 

FAC ¶ 21; HP Countercls. ¶ 21. The disclosure policy further requires those who disclose 

intellectual property rights to provide a letter of assurance stating whether they would enforce any 

of their present or future patent(s) whose use would be required to implement the proposed IEEE

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standard or provide a license to applicants without compensation or under reasonable rates, with

reasonable terms and conditions that are demonstrably free of any unfair discrimination (“RAND” 

terms). Id. Defendants allege that ChriMar was required but failed to disclose to the IEEE its 

belief that its ’250 Patent was essential to the proposed 802.3af and/or the 802.3at amendments to 

the 802.3 standard and that ChriMar was not willing to license the ’250 Patent on RAND terms. 

Cisco FAC ¶ 25; HP Countercls. ¶ 24.

Defendants further allege that “ChriMar’s failure to disclose the ’250 Patent was done 

knowingly and with intent to deceive and induce the IEEE and participants in the standards setting 

process” for the amendments to the IEEE 802.3af and 802.3at standards. Cisco FAC ¶ 31; HP 

Countercls. ¶ 30. “Due in part to ChriMar’s knowing and intentional deception, the industry 

adopted the present form of the IEEE 802.3af and IEEE 802.3at amendments to the IEEE 802.3 

standard, and is now locked-in to the current implementation . . . for Power over Ethernet-enabled 

products.” Cisco FAC ¶ 32; HP Countercls. ¶ 31. According to Defendants, if ChriMar had 

properly disclosed to the IEEE its belief that the ’250 Patent “would be infringed by practicing the 

802.3af and 802.3at amendments to the 802.3 standard, and that ChriMar was unwilling to license 

the patent on RAND terms, the IEEE would have (a) incorporated one or more viable alternative 

technologies into the IEEE 802.3af and IEEE 802.3at amendments to the IEEE 802.3 standard; (b) 

required ChriMar to provide a letter of assurance that it would license the ’250 Patent on RAND 

terms; (c) decided to either not adopt any amendment to the IEEE 802.3; and/or (d) adopted an 

amendment that did not incorporate technology that ChriMar claims is covered by the ’250 

Patent.” Cisco FAC ¶ 36; HP Counterclaims ¶ 35.

Defendants allege that ChriMar has taken the position that all PoE-enabled products 

infringe the ’250 Patent. To the extent that the ’250 Patent is essential to the 802.3af and the 

802.3at standards, no viable technology substitutes exist, and ChriMar has monopoly power over 

the PoE Technology Market. Cisco FAC ¶ 64; HP Countercls. ¶ 60. Defendants also allege that 

ChriMar violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act by abusing monopoly power. HP also brings a 

claim for attempted monopolization. Both Defendants bring claims under California’s Unfair 

Competition Law, California Business Code § 17200, based on their monopolization claims.

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On July 9, 2013, pursuant to Patent Local Rule 3-1, ChriMar served its original 

infringement contentions upon Cisco and HP. Jordan Decl. ¶ 2, Dkt. No. 257-1. Those 

contentions state: “ChriMar contends that any of Defendants’ products compliant with the IEEE 

802.3af or 802.3at [Power-over-Ethernet] standard infringes.” Id. ChriMar also reserved the right 

to “amend these Accused Products, charts, as well as other information contained in this document 

and the exhibits hereto, to incorporate new information learned during the course of discovery or 

in response to the Court’s claim construction pursuant to Patent L.R. 3-6.” Id. ChriMar has once 

previously amended its contentions to Defendants to incorporate additional products identified by 

Defendants during the discovery process. See Aug. 11, 2014 Order, Dkt. No. 198 (granting leave 

to amend contentions to Cisco); Oct. 20, 2014 Order, Dkt. No. 239 (granting leave to amend 

contentions to HP). 

On February 3, 2014, the District Court issued a tentative claim construction ruling, 

tentatively construing certain claims at issue here to require placing a low frequency signal on the 

wires that communicate information sufficient to identify or distinguish equipment through low 

frequency changes. Dkt. No. 179 at 4, 6. The Court issued its final Claim Construction Order on 

March 18, 2015. Dkt. No. 254. The Court’s constructions of the “remote module . . . to alter a 

flow of current” and “the altered current flow communicating information” limitations are 

identical to the constructions in the Court’s tentative ruling. The Court’s construction of the 

“information about” limitation is substantially the same as the Court’s tentative construction, 

except that it reflects a slight modification proposed by ChriMar during the February 2014 claim 

construction hearing. Compare Dkt. No. 179 at 4-5 with Dkt. No. 254 at 8-11. 

ChriMar now moves to amend its contentions in light of the Court’s claim construction 

ruling and to incorporate additional products identified by Cisco during discovery. It argues that 

good cause exists because the amendments address the Court’s construction of certain terms in a 

manner different from that proposed by ChriMar and Defendants. Mot. at 2 (citing Claim 

Construction Order at 6-11). ChriMar states that its proposed second supplemental infringement 

contentions include clerical edits designed to merge the separate charting of 802.3af and 802.3at 

products, as well as address the Court’s Claim Construction Order. Jordan Decl. ¶ 3. ChriMar’s 

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amendments include contentions with regard to the “communicating information” and “alter a 

flow of current”-related limitations of the ’250 Patent. Id. They also remove prior theories 

regarding doctrine of equivalents that were obviated by the Court’s construction of limitations 

referring to “module” and “cable.” Id. ¶ 4.

ChriMar argues that good cause is separately supported in Cisco’s case due to Cisco’s 

identification of additional Cisco products that practice the IEEE 802.3af and/or 802.3at standards. 

Mot. at 3. ChriMar notes that Cisco did not oppose ChriMar’s previous amendment of its 

contentions to identify additional products. Id. (citing July 3, 2014 Motion for Leave to Amend, 

Dkt. No. 197). ChriMar further argues that Cisco (as well as HP) regularly develop new products 

that include PoE-enabled Ethernet ports that all infringe the asserted claims of the ‘250 Patent, and 

there are several hundred accused products to date for Cisco alone. Id. ChriMar’s previous 

amendments were based on charts submitted to Cisco for review on May 8, 2014, and did not 

include products identified by Cisco in Cisco’s interrogatory responses subsequent to that date. 

Id. Since May 8, 2014, ChriMar states that Cisco identified 258 additional accused products on 

May 23, 2014, 8 products on May 30, 2014, and 265 additional accused products on June 20, 

2014, and that Cisco has not supplemented its interrogatory responses to newly-identify any 

additional accused products since that time. Jordan Decl. ¶ 6. 

Finally, ChriMar argues that its proposed amendments do not prejudice Defendants in any 

way, as they “merely explain to Defendants the already-known infringement theories in view of 

the terms recently construed by the Court.” Mot. at 4. ChriMar notes that “[f]act discovery is still 

ongoing, no fact discovery cutoff date has been set, no date has been set for expert reports, no trial 

date has been set, very few depositions have been taken in the District Court litigation, [and] the 

amendments do not affect any pending or previously-decided motion.” Id. 

In response, Defendants argue that ChriMar received the proposed constructions years ago, 

and the District Court’s tentative constructions more than fourteen months ago, but failed to 

amend its infringement contentions to address the constructions at either of those times. Opp’n at 

1. As such, Defendants maintain that ChriMar has failed to satisfy the diligence required to permit 

an amendment to its contentions, and Defendants would therefore be prejudiced if ChriMar is 

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permitted to introduce new theories at this stage of the case. Id. Defendants further argue that 

ChriMar’s motion should be denied because the Court’s claim construction ruling established that 

the accused products do not infringe, and ChriMar therefore seeks to amend its infringement 

contentions as a means of avoiding a summary judgment ruling of non-infringement. Id. 

LEGAL STANDARD

“The purpose of preliminary infringement contentions as required by Patent Local Rule 3.1 

is to assist the court and guide the parties in focusing on potentially dispositive issues, providing a 

framework for discovery and generally facilitating the proceedings.” AntiCancer, Inc. v. Pfizer, 

Inc., 769 F.3d 1323, 1329 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (citing Network Caching Tech. LLC v. Novell, Inc., 

2003 WL 21699799, at *5 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 21, 2003) (“PICs [preliminary infringement 

contentions] are not meant to provide a forum for litigation of the substantive issues; they are 

merely designed to streamline the discovery process.”)). The patent disclosure rules “take[] the 

place of a series of interrogatories that defendants would likely have propounded had the patent 

local rules not provided for streamlined discovery.” Intertrust Techs. Corp. v. Microsoft Corp., 

2003 WL 23120174, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Dec. 1, 2003) (quotation omitted); see also Bender v. 

Freescale Semiconductor, Inc., 2010 WL 1689465, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 26, 2010). 

Patent Local Rule 3-6 governs when a party may amend its infringement contentions and 

“serves to balance the parties’ rights to develop new information in discovery along with the need 

for certainty in legal theories at the start of the case.” Brandywine Commc’ns Techs., LLC v. 

AT&T Corp., 2014 WL 1569544, at *15 (N.D. Cal. Apr. 18, 2014) (citing O2 Micro Int’l, Ltd. v. 

Monolithic Power Sys., Inc., 467 F.3d 1355, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (additional citation omitted)). 

Thus, a party may amend its infringement contentions only upon a showing of good cause and by 

order of the Court. Patent L.R. 3-6. The moving party has the burden of demonstrating good 

cause. O2 Micro Int’l, 467 F.3d at 1366. Good cause requires a showing that the party “acted 

with diligence promptly when new evidence is revealed.” Id. at 1363. Examples of good cause 

include (a) a claim construction by the Court different from that proposed by the party seeking 

amendment; (b) recent discovery of material, prior art despite earlier diligent search; and (c) recent 

discovery of nonpublic information about the Accused Instrumentality which was not discovered, 

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despite diligent efforts, before the service of the Infringement Contentions. Patent L.R. 3-6. 

“If the court finds that the moving party has acted with diligence, it then must determine 

whether the non-moving party ‘would suffer prejudice if the motion to amend were granted.’” 

Apple Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., 2013 WL 3246094, at *1 (N.D. Cal. June 26, 2013) (quoting 

Acer, Inc. v. Tech. Prop. Ltd., 2010 WL 3618687, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Sep. 10, 2010)). Because “the 

focus of the inquiry is upon the moving party’s reasons for seeking modification,” “the existence 

or degree of prejudice to the party opposing the modification might supply additional reasons to 

deny a motion,” but if the moving party was not diligent, “the inquiry should end.” Id. (quoting 

MEMC Elec. Materials v. Mitsubishi Materials Silicon Corp., 2004 WL 5363616, at *4 (N.D. Cal. 

Mar. 2, 2004)). “However, even if the movant was arguably not diligent, the court retains 

discretion to grant leave to amend.” Linex Techs., Inc. v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 2013 WL 

5955548, at *1 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 6, 2013); see also Apple Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., 2012 WL 

5632618, at *6 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 15, 2012) (granting leave to amend infringement contentions, even 

though court found plaintiff failed to establish diligence, because of lack of prejudice to 

defendant).

DISCUSSION

A. Diligence

ChriMar stresses that it acted diligently in bringing its motion less than a month after the 

District Court’s Claim Construction Order. Mot. at 3. It notes that the motion also comes within 

two weeks of when “it became clear, through the parties’ meet-and-confer process, that it would 

be beneficial if ChriMar amended its contentions to address Defendants’ incorrect notion that the 

Court’s claim constructions entitle Defendants to a finding of non-infringement.” Id. ChriMar 

argues that it should be allowed to amend its contentions because the Court adopted constructions 

different from ChriMar’s proposed constructions. Reply at 3. 

As noted above, Patent Local Rule 3-6 provides that circumstances that support a finding 

of good cause include “[a] claim construction by the Court different from that proposed by the 

party seeking amendment.” Patent L.R. 3-6(a). ChriMar filed its motion less than one month after 

the Court issued its Claim Construction Order, and only after the parties’ meet-and-confer efforts. 

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Defendants do not dispute that the Court adopted constructions different from ChriMar’s proposed 

constructions. However, they argue that ChriMar must establish it acted with diligence from the 

time it received the proposed claim constructions, not from the time those constructions that were 

ultimately ordered by the Court. Opp’n at 7. 

The Court agrees that “differing claim construction in and of itself does not constitute good 

cause[;] the moving party must still establish its diligence.” Verinata Health, Inc. v. Sequenom, 

Inc., 2014 WL 789197, *2 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 26, 2014) (internal punctuation and citation omitted). 

However, Rule 3-6(a) “imposes no different standard when the different claim construction was 

first proposed by the opposing party.” Emblaze Ltd. v. Apple Inc., 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 132169, 

at *5-6 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 12, 2013) (no Westlaw cite available). Even where the Court, as in this 

case, previously issued tentative constructions, Rule 3-6(a) does not require a party to seek leave 

to amend prior to issuance of the final claim construction order. GPNE Corp. v. Apple Inc., 2013 

WL 6157930, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Nov. 22, 2013) (“Defendants respond that GPNE should have 

anticipated that Judge Koh’s tentative constructions would become final and therefore sought 

leave to amend earlier. . . . GPNE could not have anticipated the full scope of the amendments 

needed without the court’s claims construction order before it.”). 

Further, unlike the present case, “cases that denied leave to amend infringement 

contentions after claim construction did so because a significant amount of unaccounted time 

lapsed between the claim construction order and amendment and the amendments were filed near 

the end of discovery or close to trial.” MyMedicalRecords, Inc. v. Quest Diagnostics, Inc., 2014 

WL 5810363, at *3 (C.D. Cal. Nov. 6, 2014) (citing Apple, Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., 2014 WL 

1322028, at *7 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 28, 2014) (finding that Samsung was not diligent when filing 

leave to amend infringement contentions almost a year after the claim-construction order and less

than three weeks before trial)). Here, ChriMar seeks leave to amend less than one month after the 

District Court’s Claim Construction Order, fact discovery is ongoing and there is no fact discovery 

cut-off date, and no trial date has been set. Under these circumstances, the undersigned finds that 

ChriMar has established its diligence in seeking leave to amend. See, e.g., Radware Ltd. v. F5 

Networks, Inc., 2014 WL 3728482, at *2 (N.D. Cal. 2014) (finding it reasonable for plaintiff to 

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move for leave to amend three months after claim construction); Vasudevan Software, Inc. v. Int’l 

Bus. Machines Corp., 2011 WL 940263, at *3 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 18, 2011) (finding that plaintiff’s 

failure to move for leave to amend its infringement contentions until four months after deposition 

did not show that plaintiff failed to act diligently).

Defendants cite several cases in support of their position, but each of these cases is 

distinguishable. In Sunpower Corporation Systems v. Sunlink Corporation, the court found 

insufficient cause where the “risk of the construction rendered by the presiding judge was well 

known and anticipated by Defendant.” 2009 WL 1657987, at *1 (N.D. Cal. June 12, 2009). 

However, the court only found that the construction provided insufficient cause because the 

defendant had already served “[p]rior art and claim charts anticipating” the ordered construction. 

Id. No such issue exists here.

In Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Teleconference System, LLC, movant Teleconference waited to 

move for leave to amend until four months after the court’s claim construction ruling. 2012 WL 

9337627, at *2 (N.D. Cal. June 11, 2012). The court denied Teleconference’s motion, holding 

that its decision to wait “was motivated at least in part by gamesmanship,” and that the “[t]he 

proposed amendments identify for the first time several components of the accused products as 

meeting” the construed limitation. Id. at *4. In contrast, ChriMar has moved to amend its 

contentions within one month of the Court’s ruling, and the amended contentions do not identify 

any new components of Defendants’ products. 

In France Telecom S.A. v. Marvell Semiconductor Inc., the plaintiff argued that it should 

be allowed to supplement its expert’s infringement report. 2014 WL 1899616, at *3 (N.D. Cal. 

May 12, 2014). Although not addressing infringement contentions, the court discussed Patent 

Local Rule 3-6 by analogy and reasoned that “since France Telecom’s expert report was due 

before the claim construction ruling issued, France Telecom had an obligation to prepare for the 

fact that the court may adopt the other party’s claim construction” Id. at *4 (citations omitted). 

The court found that the plaintiff failed to establish good cause “by waiting nearly a year, until 

after expert discovery closed, to seek to supplement [the expert’s] infringement report. Id. Here, 

the undersigned finds that ChriMar has acted diligently in preparing amendments. Further, no

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deadlines have been set as to the close of discovery, the parties have not engaged in expert

discovery, and no trial date is set.

Defendants also rely on a case from the District of Delaware, St. Clair Intellectual 

Property Consultants, Inc. v. Matsushita Electronic Industrial Co., 2012 WL 1015993, at *2 (D. 

Del. Mar. 26, 2012), aff’d, 522 F. App’x 915 (Fed. Cir. 2013). St. Clair also addresses a motion 

for leave to amend an expert report. The court denied leave to amend, in part, because the 

litigation would “suffer further delay and prolonged disruption if the Court allows additional 

expert reports and discovery at this time.” Id. at *8. Once again, ChriMar’s proposed 

amendments do not affect deadlines in this case, and Defendants do not argue that any additional 

discovery is needed to address ChriMar’s proposed amendments.

Finally, in Verinata Health, Inc. v. Sequenom, Inc., the Court found that the movant lacked 

diligence “even assuming it was proper . . . to wait until the Court’s claim construction order was 

issued before seeking amendment [of its invalidity contentions].” 2014 WL 789197, at *3. There, 

the movant sought leave to amend nearly three months after the court’s claim construction order 

and “provid[ed] no explanation for this three month delay.” Id. Here, there is no indication that 

ChriMar failed to act diligently in seeking leave to amend its contentions within a month of the 

District Court’s claim construction ruling.

Based on this analysis, the undersigned finds that ChriMar acted diligently in seeking leave 

to amend.

B. Prejudice

As noted above, ChriMar argues that its proposed amendments do not prejudice 

Defendants because they “merely explain to Defendants the already-known infringement theories 

in view of the terms recently construed by the Court,” fact discovery is still ongoing, no fact 

discovery cutoff date has been set, and no trial date has been set. Mot. at 4. It maintains that the 

amendments do not affect any pending or previously-decided motion, and the amendments are not 

“motivated by gamesmanship.” Id. 

In response, Defendants argue that they “have litigated this case for a long time based on 

the theories in ChriMar’s existing infringement contentions, and should not be required to incur 

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the time and expense that would be involved in re-doing that process to address ChriMar’s latedisclosed new theories.” Opp’n at 10. Defendants note their expressed intent to file a motion for 

summary judgment on non-infringement and argue that “ChriMar waited until after receiving a 

claim construction ruling clearly foreclosing its infringement claims to seek leave to amend its 

contentions, in an effort to forestall [their] impending motion. . . .” Id. at 10-11. 

“The Patent Local Rules were designed, among other reasons, to prevent the parties from 

shifting their theories late in discovery, leaving the opposing party with little time to conduct 

discovery on a new theory.” Golden Hour Data Sys., Inc. v. Health Servs. Integration, Inc., 2008 

WL 2622794, at *4 (N.D. Cal. July 1, 2008) (citing O2 Micro Int’l, 467 F.3d at 1365). Here, there 

is no evidence that ChriMar is shifting legal theories; instead, it seeks to “explain to Defendants 

the already-known infringement theories in view of the terms recently construed by the Court.” 

Mot. at 4. ChriMar states that its amendments “involve the exact same accused instrumentalities, 

the operation of which is understood from publicly-available IEEE standards,” and “that the 

amendments are derived from ChriMar’s expert report that was previously litigated in the 

[International Trade Commission] ITC case and incorporated into ChriMar’s infringement 

contentions from the outset.” Reply at 14. 

Defendants argue that the proposed amendments add new theories of infringement to 

ChriMar’s contentions. Opp’n at 7. They maintain that “ChriMar’s alleged incorporation of its 

new theories in the original infringement contentions consists of a single sentence purporting to 

incorporate all 9,383 pages of one of ChriMar’s expert reports in the ITC investigation: ‘ChriMar 

further incorporates by reference, as if fully set forth in this disclosure, the May 16, 2012 expert 

report of Les Baxter . . . .’” Id. (quoting ChriMar’s Disclosure of Asserted Claims and 

Infringement Contentions (Patent L.R. 3-1) and Statement Regarding Accompanying Document 

Disclosure (Patent L.R. 3-2), dated July 9, 2013, De Vries Decl., Ex. 7, Dkt. No. 258-8). 

Defendants note that the passage of Baxter’s report relied upon by ChriMar was not charted or 

mapped against the claims in ChriMar’s original infringement contentions, and this type of 

cursory, general incorporation by reference fails to put the alleged infringer on proper notice of 

any infringement theory as required by the Patent Local Rules. Id. ChriMar, however, maintains 

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that its infringement theories “are taken almost wholesale from the expert report of Les Baxter, 

which was already expressly incorporated into ChriMar’s infringement contentions.” Reply at 11. 

Given that this case involves facts that were litigated in the ITC case, and both sides have 

incorporated their expert reports from that case when setting forth their invalidity contentions in 

this case, it is unclear why reference to Baxter’s report adds new theories that were unknown to 

Defendants. Regardless, there is no discovery deadline or trial date yet set, so it is not 

unreasonable for Defendants to have to expend additional resources, and “the Patent Local Rules’ 

concern with parties sandbagging opponents late in the discovery period is [ ] not at issue.” 

Fujifilm Corp. v. Motorola Mobility LLC, 2014 WL 491745, at *6 (N.D. Cal. Feb. 5, 2014) 

(quoting Yodlee Inc. v. CashEdge, Inc., 2007 WL 1454259, at *2 (N.D. Cal. May 17, 2007)); see 

also Streak Prods., Inc. v. Antec, Inc., 2010 WL 3515752, at *2 (N.D. Cal. Sep. 8, 2010) (finding 

no prejudice where the defendants were “merely seek[ing] to supplement the evidence used for a 

legal theory that was pled in their answers,” and there was no discovery deadline or trial date set). 

Accordingly, the undersigned finds that Defendants will not be unduly prejudiced if the Court 

grants ChriMar’s motion to amend its infringement contentions. 

CONCLUSION

Based on the above analysis, the undersigned RECOMMENDS that the District Court 

GRANT ChriMar’s Motion for Leave to Amend its Infringement Contentions.

Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1) and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 72(b)(2), a party 

may serve and file objections to this Report and Recommendation 14 days after being served. 

IT IS SO RECOMMENDED.

Dated: May 14, 2015

______________________________________

MARIA-ELENA JAMES

United States Magistrate Judge

Case 4:13-cv-01300-JSW Document 261 Filed 05/14/15 Page 12 of 12