Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01347/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01347-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
CenturyTel Broadband Services LLC
Appellee
Qwest Corporation
Appellee
United Access Technologies, LLC
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

UNITED ACCESS TECHNOLOGIES, LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

CENTURYTEL BROADBAND SERVICES LLC,

QWEST CORPORATION,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________ 

2014-1347

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

District of Delaware in No. 1:11-cv-00339-LPS, Chief 

Judge Leonard P. Stark.

______________________ 

Decided: February 12, 2015

______________________ 

ANTHONY MATTHEW GARZA, Charhon Callahan Robson 

& Garza, PLLC, Dallas, TX, argued for plaintiffappellant. Also represented by STEVEN CHASE CALLAHAN,

BRETT CHARHON. 

MATTHEW CHRISTOPHER GAUDET, Duane Morris LLP, 

Atlanta, GA, argued for defendants-appellees. Also 

represented by L. NORWOOD JAMESON; KRISTINA CAGGIANO

KELLY, Washington, DC. 

______________________ 

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Before NEWMAN, BRYSON, and O’MALLEY, Circuit Judges.

BRYSON, Circuit Judge.

This appeal by a patent owner requires us to address 

the collateral estoppel effects of a general jury verdict in a 

prior action involving the same patents. The district

court held that the jury’s verdict against the patentee in 

the prior action was entitled to collateral estoppel effect in 

this proceeding. We reverse.

I 

Plaintiff-appellant United Access Technologies, LLC

(“United”), is the owner of U.S. Patent Nos. 5,844,596; 

6,243,446; and 6,542,585. The asserted claims of the 

three patents recite systems for using a landline telephone connection for both voice communication and data 

transmission. The inventions are directed to the use of 

exchanges that combine the voice and data components of 

the signal for transmission over the telephone line, and 

filters that separate those components so that they can be 

received as separate voice and data signals by a user.

In 2002, United’s predecessor in interest, Inline Connection Corporation, brought suit against EarthLink, Inc., 

charging EarthLink with direct infringement of various 

claims of the three patents. Inline’s theory of the case 

was that EarthLink offered its customers an Internet 

connection service based on a broadband digital communications technology known as Asymmetrical Digital 

Subscriber Line (“ADSL”), and that Earthlink’s ADSL 

service infringed the asserted patents. EarthLink’s 

defense was that it did not infringe, for two reasons: first, 

the ADSL technology did not infringe the patents; and 

second, Earthlink’s accused ADSL system did not include

a “telephone device” as required by all asserted claims. 

The jury in the EarthLink case returned a general 

verdict of non-infringement with respect to all of the 

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asserted claims. Nothing in the verdict form or the other 

aspects of the record indicated what ground for decision 

the jury had adopted in reaching its verdict. 

Inline moved for judgment as a matter of law

(“JMOL”). The trial court denied the motion, holding that 

the jury’s verdict of non-infringement was supported by 

the evidence. In particular, the court ruled that the jury’s 

verdict could be upheld on either of two theories: (1) the 

jury could have concluded that Inline failed to carry its 

burden to show that the ADSL technology infringed the 

asserted claims, or (2) the jury could have found that 

EarthLink did not infringe because none of its systems 

included a telephone, which was a required element of 

each of the asserted claims.

In its response to Inline’s JMOL motion, EarthLink 

argued that the testimony of Inline’s expert, including his 

conclusion that standard ADSL services infringe the 

claims of the patents in suit, was heavily impeached 

during cross-examination. The trial court agreed with 

EarthLink that a reasonable jury “could have determined 

that [the expert] was impeached during his testimony 

and, therefore, lacked credibility,” and that, “[b]ased on 

such determination, the jury could reasonably have 

returned its non-infringement verdict.” In its second 

argument in response to Inline’s JMOL motion, EarthLink contended that the evidence showed that telephones 

and telephone service were separate from the Internet 

access service offered by EarthLink, and that EarthLink’s 

accused service had no connection to the telephone service 

at all. Again, the trial court agreed with EarthLink and 

ruled that “since at least one ‘telephone device’ is an 

element of each of the asserted claims, the absence of 

evidence that EarthLink’s system includes that element is 

substantial evidence upon which the jury could have 

returned its non-infringement verdict.” 

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On appeal from the trial court’s judgment in the 

EarthLink case, this court affirmed without opinion. 

United Access Techs., LLC v. EarthLink, Inc., 432 F. 

App’x 976 (Fed. Cir. 2011).

In 2011, United, as Inline’s successor, filed this action 

against defendants-appellees CenturyTel Broadband 

Services LLC, and Qwest Corporation. United charged 

the defendants with infringing the same claims of the 

three patents that had been asserted against EarthLink. 

CenturyTel and Qwest sought dismissal of United’s 

claims based on collateral estoppel. Their theory was that 

the jury’s verdict in the EarthLink case established as a 

matter of law that the industry standard ADSL technology did not infringe United’s patents. Because United 

failed to show that the ADSL services sold by CenturyTel 

and Qwest differed in any material respect from the 

ADSL services that had been sold by EarthLink, they 

contended that the prior proceedings collaterally estopped 

United from proving infringement in the present action.

The district court agreed with the defendants and 

dismissed the action on collateral estoppel grounds. The 

court began its analysis by noting that United had not 

been able to articulate how the defendants’ systems were 

different from the systems that were the subjects of the 

trial in the EarthLink case. The court explained that 

United had identified only a single potential distinguishing factor between EarthLink’s services and those offered 

by the defendants in this case: that EarthLink’s services 

did not include telephone devices, but provided an access 

service that was distinct from any service involving the 

use of a telephone, while the defendants’ services included 

telephone devices. 

The district court rejected that proposed distinction, 

stating that it “does nothing to account for the fact that 

the issue whether industry standard ADSL infringes the 

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patents-in-suit was litigated, and lost, by the Plaintiff in 

the EarthLink action.” The court added: 

At best, Plaintiff’s “telephone device” distinction 

could mean that Plaintiff’s claims against Defendants in the instant matter are not barred by collateral estoppel on the basis of the EarthLink

Court’s denial of motions for judgment as a matter 

of law (“JMOL”) based on the absence of the “telephone” elements in EarthLink’s product. But that 

would only allow Plaintiff to overcome one of the 

bases on which it lost in EarthLink. Another reason a judgment of non-infringement was entered 

in that earlier action is that Plaintiff failed to 

show that industry standard ADSL was within 

the scope of the patents-in-suit.

The court pointed out that in the EarthLink case, the 

trial court ruled that, based on the impeachment of Inline’s expert, a reasonable jury could have rejected Inline’s theory that (1) EarthLink used the industry 

standard ADSL and (2) the industry standard ADSL 

infringed the asserted patents. The Earthlink court’s 

ruling on that point, the district court concluded, constituted a “second, independent basis for the finding of noninfringement in EarthLink.” According to the district 

court, that second ground supporting the denial of Inline’s 

JMOL motion was fatal to United’s claims in this case, 

because under Third Circuit law “independently sufficient 

alternative findings [are] given preclusive effect.” Upon 

concluding that the question whether the industry standard ADSL infringes United’s patents was previously 

adjudicated against United’s predecessor in the EarthLink case, the court held that collateral estoppel principles barred United from seeking to relitigate that issue in 

this case.

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II

On appeal, United argues that the district court misapplied the principles of collateral estoppel, as those 

principles are applied by the Third Circuit.1 The essence 

of United’s argument is as follows: The JMOL order in 

the EarthLink case established only that the jury could 

permissibly have reached its verdict on either of two 

possible grounds—either that EarthLink’s system did not 

infringe because it lacked a telephone or that the standard ADSL technology was not within the scope of the 

patents in suit. The EarthLink JMOL decision therefore 

did not establish that the jury necessarily based its verdict on a conclusion that the standard ADSL technology 

did not infringe United’s patents. Accordingly, it was 

improper for the district court to hold that United is 

collaterally estopped from litigating that issue in this 

case.

That analysis is correct. To be sure, United’s argument in the district court was not nearly as focused as it 

is in this court. In fact, before the district court United 

directed its argument in large measure to irrelevant 

matters and barely alluded to the argument that it now 

vigorously presses on appeal. However, after examining 

the record of the proceedings before the district court, we 

are satisfied that United preserved the argument that it

urges upon this court, although the lack of focus in United’s argument before the district court no doubt goes a 

1 In a case such as this one, involving general principles of the law of judgments that do not implicate questions within this court’s exclusive jurisdiction, we apply 

the law of the regional circuit, which in this case is the 

Third Circuit. See Transocean Offshore Deepwater Drilling, Inc. v. Maersk Contractors USA, Inc., 617 F.3d 1296, 

1311 (Fed. Cir. 2010); Bayer AG v. Biovail Corp., 279 F.3d 

1340, 1345 (Fed. Cir. 2002).

 

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long way toward explaining why the district court erred in 

its application of collateral estoppel in this case.

A

A party seeking to apply the doctrine of collateral estoppel based on a prior action must show that (1) the 

previous determination was necessary to the decision; (2) 

the identical issue was previously litigated; (3) the issue 

was actually decided in a decision that was final, valid, 

and on the merits; and (4) the party being precluded from 

relitigating the issue was adequately represented in the 

previous action. Hawksbill Sea Turtle v. Fed. Emergency 

Mgmt. Agency, 126 F.3d 461, 474-75 (3d Cir. 1997); Stephen Slesinger, Inc. v. Disney Enters., Inc., 702 F.3d 640, 

644 (Fed. Cir. 2012); Laguna Hermosa Corp. v. United 

States, 671 F.3d 1284, 1288 (Fed. Cir. 2012); 18 Charles 

Alan Wright, Arthur R. Miller & Edward H. Cooper, 

Federal Practice & Procedure § 4416, at 392 (2002); Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 27 (1982); see generally 

Brown v. Felsen, 442 U.S. 127, 139 n.10 (1979)

(“[C]ollateral estoppel treats as final only those questions 

actually and necessarily decided in a prior suit.”). In this 

case, we focus on the third of those requirements: whether 

the issue in dispute was actually decided in the prior 

action. We conclude that the issue in dispute—whether 

standard ADSL infringes the asserted claims of United’s 

patents—was not actually decided in the EarthLink case. 

To address this issue, we must consider the principles 

of collateral estoppel that apply in the context of a general 

jury verdict. It is well established that a general jury 

verdict can give rise to collateral estoppel only if it is clear 

that the jury necessarily decided a particular issue in the 

course of reaching its verdict. See Ashe v. Swenson, 397 

U.S. 436, 444 (1970). When there are several possible 

grounds on which a jury could have based its general 

verdict and the record does not make clear which ground 

the jury relied on, collateral estoppel does not attach to 

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any of the possible theories. Id.; see Novartis Pharm. 

Corp. v. Abbott Labs., 375 F.3d 1328, 1334 (Fed. Cir. 

2004) (no collateral estoppel because there was a general 

jury verdict and “no record evidence explaining the jury’s 

rationale for its verdict”; the defendant therefore failed to 

satisfy its burden of showing that the jury necessarily 

relied on the district court’s construction of a particular 

term in the patent); Chew v. Gates, 27 F.3d 1432, 1438 

(9th Cir. 1994) (“Where the prior judgment was based on 

a general verdict, the inquiry is whether rational jurors 

must necessarily have determined the issue as to which 

estoppel is sought.”); Tucker v. Arthur Andersen & Co., 

646 F.2d 721, 729 (2d Cir. 1981) (when a general verdict 

has been rendered in favor of a defendant, “[i]f several 

issues have been litigated, it is not known what factual 

issues the jury has decided, for the defendant was entitled 

to the verdict if the plaintiff failed to persuade the jury as 

to any element of his claim”). 

When a court seeks to determine what issues were 

necessarily decided by the jury, the party asserting preclusion bears the burden of showing “with clarity and 

certainty what was determined by the prior judgment.” 

Jones v. City of Alton, Ill., 757 F.2d 878, 885 (7th Cir. 

1985); see also Connors v. Tanoma Min. Co., 953 F.2d 682, 

684 (D.C. Cir. 1992); Davis & Cox v. Summa Corp., 751 

F.2d 1507, 1518 (9th Cir. 1985). Where there is doubt as 

to the issue or issues on which the jury based its verdict, 

collateral estoppel is inapplicable. See S.E.L. Maduro 

(Fla.), Inc. v. M/V Antonio de Gastaneta, 833 F.2d 1477, 

1483 (11th Cir. 1987) (“If the jury could have premised its 

verdict on one or more of several issues, then collateral 

estoppel does not act as a bar to future litigation of the 

issues.”); C.B. Marchant Co. v. Eastern Foods, Inc., 756 

F.2d 317, 319 (4th Cir. 1985) (holding that it was impossible to determine from the general verdict in a prior action 

what theory the jury had relied on to award damages; 

“[b]ecause of the existence of alternative bases of liability, 

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it cannot be shown that the proof of a de facto merger was 

necessary and essential to the judgment.”); N.J.-Phila.

Presbytery of the Bible Presbyterian Church v. N.J. State 

Bd. of Higher Educ., 654 F.2d 868, 876 (3d Cir. 1981) (“[I]f 

the judgment is based on one or more of several grounds, 

but does not expressly rely on any of them, none is conclusively established, since a subsequent court cannot tell 

what issue or issues were in fact fully adjudicated.”) 

(applying New Jersey law). 

In its 1876 decision in Russell v. Place, 94 U.S. 606 

(1876), the Supreme Court dealt with a case roughly 

analogous to this one and set out the principles that 

govern our decision in this case. In Russell, a patentee 

obtained a jury verdict for patent infringement, upon 

which judgment was entered. The verdict was obtained 

over a defense of patent invalidity. The patentee later 

filed a second action on the same patent against the same 

defendant and sought to invoke the judgment in the first 

case to estop the defendant from asserting patent invalidity in the second case. The Supreme Court held that 

collateral estoppel was not available, because of uncertainty as to the scope of the verdict in the first case.

The Russell Court ruled that in order for collateral estoppel to apply, 

it must appear, either upon the face of the record 

or be shown by extrinsic evidence, that the precise 

question was raised and determined in the former 

suit. If there be any uncertainty on this head in 

the record—as, for example, if it appear that several distinct matters may have been litigated upon one or more of which the judgment may have 

passed, without indicating which of them was 

thus litigated, and upon which the judgment was 

rendered—the whole subject-matter of the action 

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dence showing the precise point involved and determined.

94 U.S. at 608. Because the initial action had been tried 

on two claims, and it was unclear whether the jury had 

based its liability decision on only one of the two claims, 

the Supreme Court held that “[t]he validity of the patent 

was not necessarily involved, except with respect to the 

claim which was the basis of the recovery.” Id. at 609. 

Even though the Court acknowledged that the prior jury 

might have found infringement based on either claim or 

both, it held that the record lacked “that certainty which 

is essential to its operation as an estoppel and does not 

conclude the defendants from contesting the infringement 

or the validity of the patent in this suit.” Id. Accordingly, 

the Court held that the jury’s verdict in the first action 

was not entitled to be given collateral estoppel effect in 

the second.

B 

The district court in this case found that the jury 

could have based its verdict in the EarthLink case on one 

of two separate grounds—either that EarthLink did not 

use a telephone in its system or that the standard ADSL 

technology itself did not infringe. Normally, the court’s 

finding that the verdict could have been based on alternative grounds would be sufficient to render collateral 

estoppel unavailable. The court, however, ruled that 

collateral estoppel was available to the defendants because the trial court in the EarthLink case had held, in 

response to the plaintiff’s JMOL motion, that the jury’s 

verdict could be sustained on either of the two theories of 

noninfringement that were presented to it. The defendants argued to the district court, and continue to argue 

here, that under Third Circuit law, if there are alternative 

grounds for a decision, collateral estoppel can apply to 

both of them. The defendants principally rely on the 

holding in Jean Alexander Cosmetics, Inc. v. L’Oreal 

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USA, Inc., 458 F.3d 244 (3d Cir. 2006), for that proposition. 

The problem with the defendants’ argument is that it 

is based on a principle that applies to a situation very 

different from the one at issue here. The Jean Alexander

case on which the defendants rely involved a decision by 

an adjudicator in the first case that was explicitly based 

on two alternative grounds. That means that the adjudicator actually considered both grounds and regarded each 

as independently sufficient to justify the conclusion 

reached. In that setting, it is reasonable to conclude that 

collateral estoppel effect should be granted to either of the 

adjudicator’s alternative holdings. In Jean Alexander, the 

court had before it a prior ruling of the Trademark Trial 

and Appeal Board (“TTAB”) dismissing L’Oreal’s petition 

to cancel Jean Alexander’s registration of a trademark. 

The prior ruling was explicitly based on two independent 

grounds—priority and lack of likelihood of confusion. The 

question before the court was whether, in light of the two 

independent grounds for decision, either one would be 

entitled to collateral estoppel effect. The court held that 

in such a case both rulings are entitled to preclusive 

effect. In so doing, the Third Circuit adopted a position 

that had been endorsed in the First Restatement of 

Judgments, but rejected in the Second Restatement of 

Judgments, and on which there is a split among the 

circuits.

The First Restatement of Judgments took the position 

that where the decision of the first tribunal rests on 

alternative grounds, collateral estoppel can apply to each 

of the alternative grounds recited. Restatement of Judgments § 68 cmt. n (1942) (“Where the judgment is based 

upon the matters litigated as alternative grounds, the 

judgment is determinative on both grounds, although 

either alone would have been sufficient to support the 

judgment.”). In the Second Restatement of Judgments, 

the American Law Institute changed its position and 

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adopted the view that, where the decision of the first 

tribunal rests on alternative grounds, none of those 

grounds is entitled to be accorded collateral estoppel 

effect. Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 27 cmt. i (“If 

a judgment of a court of first instance is based on determinations of two issues, either of which standing independently would be sufficient to support the result, the 

judgment is not conclusive with respect to either issue 

standing alone.”). 

The rationale underlying the First Restatement’s position is that when the first tribunal has expressly adopted alternative grounds for a decision, it has 

unambiguously determined that each of those grounds is 

sufficient to justify its decision, and the fact that there are 

other grounds that also support the decision should not 

undermine the preclusive effect of the decision on the 

issue in dispute. The rationale of the Second Restatement’s position is that when a tribunal decides a case 

based on alternative grounds, none of them is strictly 

necessary to the decision, and it is possible that less 

attention was paid to each than would be the case if the 

decision rested on a single ground.2 

The defendants contend that this case turns on the issue that divided the two Restatements, and that this 

2 Several circuits, in addition to the Third Circuit, 

have adopted the First Restatement’s position. See, e.g., 

Gelb v. Royal Globe Ins. Co., 798 F.2d 38, 45 (2d Cir. 

1986); In re Westgate-Cal. Corp., 642 F.2d 1174, 1176-77 

(9th Cir. 1981). Other circuits have adopted the position 

of the Second Restatement. See, e.g., In re Microsoft Corp. 

Antitrust Litig., 355 F.3d 322, 328 (4th Cir. 2004); Peabody Coal Co. v. Spese, 117 F.3d 1001, 1008 (7th Cir. 

1997) (en banc); Soc’y of Separationists, Inc. v. Herman, 

939 F.2d 1207, 1213-14 n.25 (5th Cir. 1991); Turney v. 

O’Toole, 898 F.2d 1470, 1472 n.1 (10th Cir. 1990). 

 

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court is obliged to follow the Third Circuit’s position 

adopting the First Restatement’s view. In so arguing, the 

defendants necessarily contend that the Earthlink JMOL 

ruling is analogous to the TTAB decision in the Jean 

Alexander case. But that contention is mistaken. The 

decision of the prior tribunal in Jean Alexander was an 

explicit ruling that two independent grounds supported 

the tribunal’s decision in the first case. By contrast, the 

court’s JMOL ruling in the EarthLink case was simply a 

decision that a rational jury could reasonably have found 

non-infringement based on either of two theories. The 

JMOL ruling did not hold that the jury had, in fact, 

decided in favor of EarthLink on both of those grounds. 

That difference is dispositive. The application of collateral estoppel depends on the second court’s concluding 

that the issue in dispute was clearly resolved by the first 

tribunal. That was true in the Jean Alexander case, but 

not in the EarthLink case, where the trial court’s decision 

on JMOL was simply that the jury could reasonably have 

concluded that the standard ADSL system did not infringe, not that the jury necessarily did so conclude.

The defendants’ argument that a ruling as to the sufficiency of the evidence on multiple grounds provides a 

basis for invoking collateral estoppel on each of those 

grounds is squarely contrary to the reasoning of one of the 

Supreme Court’s leading decisions on collateral estoppel, 

Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436 (1970). In Ashe, the Court 

explained that in determining the collateral estoppel 

effect, if any, of a general jury verdict, the court must 

decide “whether a rational jury could have grounded its 

verdict upon an issue other than that which the defendant 

seeks to foreclose from consideration.” Id. at 444. The 

Court held that if the jury could have based its verdict on 

a ground other than the one in dispute, collateral estoppel 

would not bar litigation of the disputed issue. See Schiro 

v. Farley, 510 U.S. 222, 233 (1994). 

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That is exactly the situation in this case: In holding 

that the jury verdict in the EarthLink case could have 

been based on the absence of a telephone from EarthLink’s systems, rather than on the failure of proof that 

the ADSL technology infringes United’s patents, the trial 

court in EarthLink found that a rational jury could have 

grounded its verdict on an issue other than the one the 

defendants now seek to foreclose from consideration—

precisely the finding that the Supreme Court in Ashe held 

to be fatal to an effort to apply collateral estoppel to the 

jury’s verdict.

The defendants’ theory of collateral estoppel is also 

contrary to a Supreme Court decision from a century and 

a half ago, Packet Co. v. Sickles, 72 U.S. 580 (1866). In 

that case, the plaintiff sued the defendant on four counts, 

including the first and fourth counts, which involved two 

different contracts. The jury returned a general verdict in 

favor of the plaintiff, but without specifying whether its 

verdict was based on the contract in the first count or the 

contract in the fourth count. 

In a later action brought by the plaintiff on the contract that had been asserted in the first count of the first 

action, the plaintiff sought to estop the defendant from 

asserting the invalidity of the contract as a defense. The 

Supreme Court rejected the plaintiff’s claim. The Court 

observed that the record of the first case showed that the 

evidence “was sufficient to have justified the jury in 

finding either contract.” Sickles, 72 U.S. at 591. Nonetheless, the Court concluded that because the jury “might 

have found in favor of the plaintiffs on the contract as set 

forth in the fourth count, even if they disbelieved the 

proof of the agreement [set forth in the first count],” id. at 

591-92, the jury’s verdict could not be erected as an estoppel against the defendant’s challenge to the contract 

asserted in the first count. The Court explained that 

“even where it appears from the extrinsic evidence that 

the matter was properly within the issue controverted in 

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the former suit, if it be not shown that the verdict and 

judgment necessarily involved its consideration and 

determination, it will not be concluded.” Id. at 592. Thus, 

even though the Court in the Sickles case held that the 

evidence was sufficient to support a verdict on either 

theory of liability raised in the first action, the Supreme 

Court held that collateral estoppel did not apply because 

“it is quite clear that the record of the former trial, together with the extrinsic proofs, failed to show that the 

contract in controversy in the present suit was necessarily 

determined in the former in behalf of the plaintiffs.” Id. 

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Sickles case cannot be squared with the district court’s decision here. In 

Sickles, as here, the first jury could have based its finding 

of liability on either (or both) of two possible grounds. 

The Court in Sickles, like the trial court in EarthLink, 

found that the evidence was sufficient to support the 

jury’s verdict on either ground. Nonetheless, the Sickles 

Court held that because it was not clear that the first jury 

decided the case on the ground presented in the second 

action, collateral estoppel was inapplicable. Applying the 

same analysis here requires that we reverse the district 

court’s decision applying collateral estoppel against 

United. 

C 

The defendants argue that United waived its right to 

argue that the “same issue” was not presented in the first 

and second actions in this case, because it failed to identify any material difference between the systems accused in 

the two cases. That argument misses the point. The 

question before this court is not whether there is a difference between the ADSL system sold by EarthLink and 

the ADSL system sold by the defendants. Instead, assuming the two accused ADSL systems share the same industry standard ADSL technology, the question is whether

the jury in the EarthLink case necessarily decided that 

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the standard ADSL technology infringed the asserted 

claims. If it is not known whether the EarthLink jury 

found that the standard ADSL technology infringed, it 

does not matter whether the two systems are the same or 

not. That is because, if the jury did not necessarily decide 

that the standard ADSL technology did not infringe the 

asserted claims, there is no decision in the first case to

which collateral estoppel can be applied in this one. 

There may be other grounds on which the defendants 

in this case can prevail without the need for a trial, and 

our opinion does not foreclose the district court from 

addressing any such grounds, if they exist. We hold only 

that it was error to apply collateral estoppel to a general 

jury verdict that could have rested on multiple grounds, 

simply because the first court held, in its JMOL ruling, 

that the evidence would have been sufficient to support 

the jury’s verdict on either theory of liability presented to 

it. 

REVERSED AND REMANDED 

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