Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-19-01264/USCOURTS-ca13-19-01264-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
AT&T Services, Inc.
Appellee
Cheetah Omni LLC
Appellant
Ciena Communications, Inc.
Appellee
Ciena Corporation
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________

CHEETAH OMNI LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

AT&T SERVICES, INC., A DELAWARE 

CORPORATION, CIENA CORPORATION, CIENA 

COMMUNICATIONS, INC.,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________

2019-1264

______________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Northern District of Texas in No. 3:17-cv-01993-K, Judge 

Ed Kinkeade.

______________________

Decided: February 6, 2020

______________________

THOMAS A. LEWRY, Brooks Kushman PC, Southfield, 

MI, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by 

DAVID C. BERRY, CHRISTOPHER C. SMITH. 

 L. NORWOOD JAMESON, Duane Morris LLP, Atlanta, 

GA, argued for all defendants-appellees. Defendant-appellee AT&T Services, Inc. also represented by MATTHEW 

YUNGWIRTH, ALISON HADDOCK HUTTON; CHRISTOPHER 

JOSEPH TYSON, Washington, DC. 

Case: 19-1264 Document: 64 Page: 1 Filed: 02/06/2020
2 CHEETAH OMNI LLC v. AT&T SERVICES, INC.

 MATTHEW J. MOORE, Latham & Watkins LLP, Washington, DC, for defendants-appellees Ciena Corporation, 

Ciena Communications, Inc. Also represented by GABRIEL 

BELL, ABIGAIL A. RIVES; CLEMENT J. NAPLES, New York, 

NY. 

 ______________________

Before LOURIE, BRYSON, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.

LOURIE, Circuit Judge.

Cheetah Omni LLC (“Cheetah”) appeals from the judgment of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of 

Texas dismissing its infringement claims against appellees 

AT&T Services, Inc. (“AT&T”) and Ciena Communications, 

Inc. and Ciena Corporation (collectively, “Ciena”) with prejudice. Judgment, Cheetah Omni LLC v. AT&T Servs., Inc., 

No. 3:17-cv-01993-K (N.D. Tex. Oct. 23, 2018), ECF No. 

130. For the reasons detailed below, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

Cheetah owns U.S. Patent 7,522,836 (“the ’836 patent”) 

directed to optical communication networks. AT&T uses a 

system of hardware and software components in its AT&T 

fiber optic communication networks. 

In the district court, Cheetah asserted that AT&T infringes the ’836 patent by making, using, offering for sale, 

selling, or importing its fiber equipment and services. In 

response to the allegations, Ciena moved to intervene in 

the suit because it manufactures and supplies certain components for AT&T’s fiber optic systems and because those 

components formed the basis of some of Cheetah’s infringement allegations. The court granted Ciena’s motion to intervene. 

Ciena and AT&T then moved for summary judgment 

that Cheetah’s infringement claim was barred by agreements settling previous litigation. Specifically, Cheetah 

had brought suit against Ciena and Fujitsu Network 

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CHEETAH OMNI LLC v. AT&T SERVICES, INC. 3

Communications (“Fujitsu”) and executed two license 

agreements—one with Ciena and one with Fujitsu. In 

their motion, Ciena and AT&T argued that the two prior 

licenses included implicit licenses to the ’836 patent covering all of the accused products. The district court agreed, 

granting summary judgment and dismissing the suit with 

prejudice. Memorandum Opinion and Order, Cheetah 

Omni LLC v. AT&T Servs., Inc., No. 3:17-cv-01993-K (N.D. 

Tex. Oct. 23, 2018), ECF No. 129 (“Decision”).

Cheetah appealed, and we have jurisdiction under 

28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

DISCUSSION

We review a grant of summary judgment under the law 

of the regional circuit, which in this case is the Fifth Circuit. See Charles Mach. Works, Inc. v. Vermeer Mfg. Co., 

723 F.3d 1376, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (citing Grober v. Mako 

Prods., Inc., 686 F.3d 1335, 1344 (Fed. Cir. 2012)). The 

Fifth Circuit reviews a grant of “summary judgment de 

novo.” Patel v. Texas Tech Univ., 941 F.3d 743, 747 (5th 

Cir. 2019) (citing Ezell v. Kan. City S. Ry. Co., 866 F.3d 294, 

297 (5th Cir. 2017)). 

Summary judgment is appropriate when the moving 

party demonstrates that “there is no genuine dispute as to 

any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment 

as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a); Celotex Corp. v. 

Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322–23 (1986). We construe the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmovant and 

draw all reasonable inferences in that party’s favor. R & L 

Inv. Prop., LLC v. Hamm, 715 F.3d 145, 149 (5th Cir. 2013)

(quoting Griffin v. United Parcel Serv., Inc., 661 F.3d 216, 

221 (5th Cir. 2011)). “Only disputes over facts that might 

affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law will 

properly preclude the entry of summary judgment.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986).

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4 CHEETAH OMNI LLC v. AT&T SERVICES, INC.

The Fifth Circuit “review[s] the district court’s legal 

conclusions, including its interpretation of contracts, de 

novo.” Texaco Expl. & Prod., Inc. v. AmClyde Engineered 

Prods. Co., 448 F.3d 760, 777 (5th Cir. 2006) (citing Taita 

Chem. Co. v. Westlake Styrene Corp., 246 F.3d 377, 385 (5th 

Cir. 2001) and Nolan v. Golden Rule Ins. Co., 171 F.3d 990, 

992 (5th Cir. 1999)).

To frame the parties’ dispute, a review of the previous 

litigation and resulting settlements is necessary. In 2011, 

Cheetah brought suit against, inter alia, Ciena and Fujitsu, accusing certain Reconfigurable Optical Add/Drop 

Multiplexer (“ROADM”) products of infringing, inter alia, 

U.S. Patent 7,339,714 (“the ’714 patent”). See Complaint, 

Cheetah Omni LLC v. Alcatel-Lucent USA Inc., No. 6:11-

cv-00390-TBD (E.D. Tex. July 29, 2011), ECF No. 1. Cheetah settled the ROADM case with both Ciena and Fujitsu, 

executing two separate agreements with each party: a covenant not to sue and a license. Relevant here are the license agreements (“licenses”).

The licenses granted to Ciena and Fujitsu do not differ 

in any material respect for purposes of the present appeal, 

so we treat the Ciena license as representative. Cheetah 

granted to Ciena “a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, nonexclusive, fully paid-up license under the Licensed Patents 

to make, have made (directly or indirectly and solely for 

Ciena or its Affiliates), use, offer to sell, sell, and import 

and export the Licensed Products.” J.A. 411. The agreement defined “Licensed Patents” to mean 

(i) the Patents-in-Suit, and (ii) all parents, provisionals, substitutes, renewals, continuations, continuations-in-part, divisionals, foreign counterparts, 

reissues, oppositions, continued examinations, 

reexaminations, and extensions of the Patents-inSuit owned by, filed by, assigned to or otherwise 

controlled by or enforceable by Cheetah or any of 

its Affiliates or its or their respective successors in 

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CHEETAH OMNI LLC v. AT&T SERVICES, INC. 5

interest at any time as of, prior to, on or after the 

Effective Date, whether filed before, on or after the 

Effective Date.

J.A. 410. The “Effective Date” was defined as “the earliest 

date upon which all Parties ha[d] signed th[e] Agreement 

or identical counterparts thereof.” J.A. 411. The “Licensed 

Products” were defined as 

(i) all past, present or future Ciena or Ciena Affiliate products, services or combinations, components, or systems of products or services, and any 

modifications or enhancements thereof, that could 

by themselves or in combination with other products, services, components or systems, be alleged to 

infringe at least one claim of at least one Licensed 

Patent in the absence of a license under this Agreement and (ii) all Ciena products identified or accused by Cheetah of infringing any claim of any of 

the Patents-in-Suit in its complaint, amended complaint, infringement contentions, or otherwise.

J.A. 410.

Key to the parties’ dispute is the relationship between 

the ’836 and ’714 patents. The ’714 patent is a continuation-in-part of U.S. Patent 6,943,925 (“the ’925 patent”). 

The ’836 patent is a continuation of U.S. Patent 7,145,704

(“the ’704 patent”), which is also a continuation of the ’925 

patent. These relationships are depicted below:

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6 CHEETAH OMNI LLC v. AT&T SERVICES, INC.

Because the ’714 patent was asserted in the ROADM 

litigation, it is necessarily included in the Ciena license. By 

its terms, the Ciena license also includes “all parents” to 

the patents in the ROADM litigation, and, as the parent to 

the ’714 patent, the ’925 patent is likewise an expressly licensed patent under the agreement, even if not enumerated. The question we are presented with here, however, 

is whether the ’836 patent, a continuation of a continuation 

of the ’925 patent, i.e., its grandchild, is impliedly licensed 

under the Ciena license. In personal terms, because the 

uncle and grandparent of the ’836 patent, are licensed, is 

the ’836 patent also licensed? 

Relying on our holding in General Protecht Group Inc. 

v. Leviton Manufacturing Co., 651 F.3d 1355, 1361 (Fed. 

Cir. 2011), the district court determined that the ’836 patent was impliedly licensed as the grandchild of the expressly licensed ’925 patent. Decision, slip op. at 10. The 

district court reasoned that an express license of the ’925 

patent included an implied license for its continuations “because those continuations disclose the same inventions as 

the licensed patent.” Id. We agree. 

Cheetah’s primary argument to the contrary is that the 

parties did not intend that the licenses extend to the ’836 

patent. In settling the ROADM litigation, Ciena and Fujitsu each executed a license and a separate covenant not 

to sue, and the covenants not to sue expressly included the 

’836 patent, while the licenses did not. Further, Fujitsu 

was aware of the ’836 patent due to its participation and 

settlement of a previous litigation where the ’836 patent 

was at issue. According to Cheetah, all parties were aware 

of the ’836 patent, and if they had intended to include the 

’836 patent, the patent would have been expressly named 

in the license agreements. 

Cheetah also argues that the ’836 patent covers an invention different from the inventions claimed in the patents at issue in the ROADM litigation. Cheetah contends 

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CHEETAH OMNI LLC v. AT&T SERVICES, INC. 7

that the ’836 patent claims are directed to a system that 

includes ROADM technology in combination with other 

components, while the ROADM patents cover only ROADM 

functionality. Cheetah further argues that the accused 

AT&T products are not “Licensed Products” within the 

scope of the licenses. 

AT&T and Ciena respond that neither license agreement expressly lists all included patents by number and, 

instead, only lists broad categories of patents. AT&T and 

Ciena also note that the parties did exclude other patents

explicitly: the Ciena covenant recited a list of medical patents the parties expressly excluded from the agreement. 

Thus, Ciena argues, if the parties had mutually intended 

to exclude the ’836 patent, they would have done so explicitly. 

As for Cheetah’s other arguments, AT&T and Ciena 

maintain that the licenses are not limited to any particular 

claims of the patents from the ROADM litigation and, by 

including continuations, contemplate “the entirety of the 

disclosed inventions and any claims that could issue from 

such disclosed inventions.” AT&T and Ciena Br. 30. AT&T 

and Ciena also submit that the accused AT&T system is a 

“Licensed Product” within the scope of the licenses because 

the definition of “Licensed Product” extends to Ciena and 

Fujitsu products in combination with other products. In 

the alternative, AT&T and Ciena argue that Cheetah’s 

claims are also barred by the covenants not to sue.

We agree with the district court, and with AT&T and 

Ciena, that the licenses include an implied license to the 

’836 patent that extends to the accused AT&T systems. Legal estoppel prevents licensors from derogating or detracting from definable license rights granted to licensees for 

valuable consideration. AMP Inc. v. United States, 389 

F.2d 448, 452 (Ct. Cl. 1968). In TransCore, we interpreted 

legal estoppel to provide an implied license to a related, 

later-issued patent that was broader than and necessary to 

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8 CHEETAH OMNI LLC v. AT&T SERVICES, INC.

practice an expressly licensed patent. TransCore, LP v. 

Elec. Transaction Consultants Corp., 563 F.3d 1271, 1279 

(Fed. Cir. 2009).

Two years later, we considered whether an express license to a patent includes an implied license to its continuations, even when the continuation claims are narrower 

than previously asserted claims. General Protecht, 651 

F.3d at 1361. Relying on TransCore, we answered that 

question in the affirmative: “Where . . . continuations issue 

from parent patents that previously have been licensed as 

to certain products, it may be presumed that, absent a clear 

indication of mutual intent to the contrary, those products 

are impliedly licensed under the continuations as well.” Id. 

We further explained that parties could contract around 

the presumption of an implied license if it did not “reflect 

their intentions” but that it was the parties’ burden to 

“make such intent clear in the license.” Id. 

In General Protecht, the continuation patent at issue 

had not yet issued at the time of the parties’ express license 

of the parent patent. Cheetah attempts to cabin General 

Protecht’s holding to express licenses executed before the 

issuance of a continuation patent. We decline to read General Protecht so narrowly. The timing of patent issuance is 

not material to the policy rationale underpinning our implied license presumption. See TransCore, 563 F.3d at 

1279. Moreover, if anything, it is easier for the parties to 

clearly identify an already-issued continuation and expressly exclude it from a license agreement. 

Applying the presumption established in General Protecht provides a simple and clear resolution in this case. 

Because the ’925 patent is an expressly licensed patent in 

the licenses, the licenses also include an implied license to 

a continuation of its continuation, the ’836 patent. To the 

extent Cheetah argues that the ’836 patent claims cover a 

different invention from or are narrower than the ’925 patent claims, the answer is that the same inventive subject 

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CHEETAH OMNI LLC v. AT&T SERVICES, INC. 9

matter was disclosed in the expressly licensed patents. If 

Cheetah did not intend its license “to extend to claims presented in continuation patents, it had an obligation to 

make that clear.” General Protecht, 651 F.3d at 1361. The 

expectation is properly placed on the patent owner, Cheetah, to specifically carve out continuation patents that it 

intended to exclude because Cheetah has the most information about its total patent portfolio. If Cheetah had a 

contrary intent, it could have made its intent clear in the 

agreement as a matter of contract drafting. 

Cheetah attempts to evade the presumption that a license to a patent includes a license to its continuation by 

arguing that the parties had knowledge of the ’836 patent 

and would have named it expressly if they mutually intended that it be included. The naming of certain patents 

expressly, however, does not evince a clear mutual intent 

to exclude other patents falling within the general definitions in an agreement. That is especially true here where 

the licenses list broad categories of patents without reciting their numbers individually. 

Cheetah finally argues that the AT&T products accused in this litigation are not “Licensed Products” within 

the scope of the licenses. But the Ciena license defines “Licensed Products” as “all past, present, or future Ciena or 

Ciena Affiliate products . . . that could by themselves or in 

combination with other products, services, components or 

systems, be alleged to infringe at least one claim of at least 

one Licensed Patent.” J.A. 410 (emphasis added). The accused AT&T systems combine Ciena and Fujitsu products 

with other components and are thus Licensed Products 

within the meaning of the licenses.

Because the licenses extend to both the ’836 patent and 

the AT&T products accused in this litigation, the district 

court properly granted summary judgment for AT&T and 

Ciena and dismissed the infringement suit. And because 

we have concluded that AT&T’s products are licensed 

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10 CHEETAH OMNI LLC v. AT&T SERVICES, INC.

under the license agreement, we need not consider the 

scope of the covenant not to sue. 

CONCLUSION

We have considered Cheetah’s remaining arguments 

but find them unpersuasive. Accordingly, the judgment of 

the district court is affirmed.

AFFIRMED

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