Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-12-01042/USCOURTS-ca13-12-01042-2/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Cisco Systems, Inc.
Appellant
Commil USA, LLC
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

COMMIL USA, LLC, 

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

CISCO SYSTEMS, INC.,

Defendant-Appellant

______________________ 

2012-1042

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Texas in No. 07-CV-0341, Magistrate 

Judge Charles Everingham.

______________________ 

Decided: December 28, 2015

______________________ 

RICHARD A. SAYLES, Sayles Werbner, P.C., Dallas, TX, 

for plaintiff-appellee. Also represented by MARK S.

WERBNER, MARK STRACHAN, DARREN PATRICK NICHOLSON; 

LESLIE V. PAYNE, Conley Rose, P.C., Houston, TX; 

MIRANDA Y. JONES, Heim, Payne & Chorush, LLP, Houston, TX. 

WILLIAM F. LEE, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and 

Dorr LLP, Boston, MA, for defendant-appellant. Also 

represented by MARK CHRISTOPHER FLEMING, ERIC 

FLETCHER; JONATHAN W. ANDRON, FELICIA H. ELLSWORTH,

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2 COMMIL USA v. CISCO SYSTEMS

New York, NY; WILLIAM G. MCELWAIN, FRANCESCO 

VALENTINI, SETH P. WAXMAN, Washington, DC; JEFFREY 

ERIC OSTROW, HARRISON J. FRAHN IV, PATRICK E. KING, 

JONATHAN SANDERS, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP, 

Palo Alto, CA; HENRY B. GUTMAN, New York, NY. 

______________________ 

Before PROST, Chief Judge, NEWMAN and O’MALLEY,

Circuit Judges.

PROST, Chief Judge. 

This case returns to us on remand from the Supreme 

Court. See Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Sys., Inc., 135 S. 

Ct. 1920 (2015). While our previous opinion had remanded this case to the district court for a new trial, Commil 

USA, LLC v. Cisco Sys., Inc., 720 F.3d 1361, 1372 (Fed. 

Cir. 2013), when we received the case back from the 

Supreme Court we granted Cisco’s request to retain the 

case and address Cisco’s remaining non-infringement 

arguments which we had declined to address in our 

previous opinion. ECF No. 101. We now conclude that 

substantial evidence does not support the jury’s finding 

that Cisco’s devices, when used, perform the “running” 

step of the asserted claims. The district court’s judgment

is therefore reversed.1 

I 

Because much of the relevant background is set forth 

in our previous opinion, we summarize only briefly here 

the facts and posture of this case.

1 We do not disturb, and therefore reinstate from 

our original decision, everything other than (i) the portion 

affected by the Supreme Court’s decision, Section II(B), 

and (ii) our direction that the case be remanded for a new 

trial. 

 

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COMMIL USA v. CISCO SYSTEMS 3

Commil owns U.S. Patent No. 6,430,395 (“’395 patent”), which relates to a method of providing faster and 

more reliable handoffs of mobile devices from one base 

station to another as a mobile device moves throughout a 

network area. In 2007, Commil brought this action 

against Cisco, which makes and sells wireless networking 

equipment. In a first jury trial, Commil alleged that 

Cisco directly infringed the ’395 patent by making and 

using networking equipment, and also that Cisco induced 

its customers to infringe by selling them the infringing 

equipment. The jury concluded that Commil’s patent was 

valid, that Cisco was liable for direct but not induced 

infringement, and awarded $3.7 million in damages. 

Commil then filed a motion for a new trial on induced 

infringement and damages, which the district court 

granted. The second jury concluded that Cisco was liable 

for induced infringement and awarded $63.7 million in 

damages. 

Cisco thereafter appealed to us, raising a number of 

issues. A split panel affirmed in part, vacated in part, 

and remanded for a new trial. Commil, 720 F.3d at 1361. 

Because we were remanding for a new trial, we did not 

reach certain of Cisco’s arguments on non-infringement 

and damages. Id. at 1372. Following that decision, 

Commil sought certiorari on the limited question of 

whether a defendant’s belief that a patent is invalid is a 

defense to induced infringement. The Supreme Court 

granted certiorari, reversed the majority’s decision on 

that issue, and vacated and remanded back to us.

Upon return to this court, Cisco requested that we 

address its non-infringement arguments that a majority 

of this panel previously had declined to decide. Specifically, Cisco contends that Commil cannot prevail on its

infringement charges because neither Cisco nor its customers directly infringe by performing both method steps. 

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4 COMMIL USA v. CISCO SYSTEMS

We granted Cisco’s request, and now address those arguments. We review the jury’s determinations of infringement for substantial evidence. ACCO Brands, Inc. v. ABA 

Locks Mfrs. Co., 501 F.3d 1307, 1311 (Fed. Cir. 2007).

II

Claim 1, the sole independent claim of the ’395 patent, 

contains two steps: a “dividing” step and a “running” step. 

Specifically, Claim 1 reads:

In a wireless communication system comprising at 

least two Base Stations, at least one Switch in 

communication with the Base Stations, a method 

of communicating between mobile units and the 

Base Stations comprising: 

dividing a short-range communication protocol into a low-level protocol for performing tasks that 

require accurate time synchronization and a highlevel protocol which does not require accurate 

time synchronization; and

for each connection of a mobile unit with a Base 

Station, running an instance of the low-level protocol at the Base Station connected with the mobile unit and running an instance of the high-level 

protocol at the Switch.

’395 patent col. 39 ll. 16-29.

We begin with the running step.2 The district court 

construed the running step as requiring “for each connection of a mobile unit with a Base Station, running at the 

Base Station a copy of the low-level protocol supporting 

only that connection and running at the Switch a corre2 Because we find the running step is not performed 

by either Cisco or its customers, we need not reach the 

party’s additional arguments on the dividing step. 

 

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COMMIL USA v. CISCO SYSTEMS 5

sponding separate copy of the high level protocol supporting only that connection.” J.A. 2 (emphasis added). Cisco

contends that this step is never performed when its 

system is used, because its system employs a single copy

of the protocol to support all the connected devices. 

We agree with Cisco. First, Cisco’s engineer testified 

that Cisco’s system runs only one copy of the protocol to 

support multiple connected mobile devices. Specifically, 

he testified that Cisco’s system “needs and uses only one 

copy of the protocol to support all 2,000 of those mobile 

devices . . . . The standard was written in a fashion that 

only one copy of the protocol is necessary to implement 

the standard.” J.A. 6268. 

Although Commil sought to establish otherwise 

through expert testimony, that testimony falls far short of 

supporting the jury verdict here. Specifically, Commil’s 

expert testified that, at most, Cisco’s devices track separate state information for each connected device. He 

opined that: “[T]he instructions, the protocol . . . it’s a 

state machine. So this communication state that it is 

invoking in that communication represents a copy of the 

protocol that’s unique to that one device that it’s communicating with.” J.A. 6176; see also id. (“[A]ll of that 

information, with regard to that state that it’s using for 

the communication, is its own copy of the protocol that’s 

unique to that one communication path . . . . ”). But 

tracking separate state information for each device does 

not provide substantial evidence to satisfy a limitation 

that requires running a separate protocol copy for each 

device. Moreover, when pressed, Commil’s expert conceded that Cisco’s system supports multiple connected devices at the same time, but only runs one copy of the protocol 

at any one time. J.A. 6204, 6018. In light of this testimony, a reasonable jury could not have found that Cisco’s 

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6 COMMIL USA v. CISCO SYSTEMS

devices run a separate copy of the protocol for each connected device.

Nor is the jury’s verdict supported by Commil’s additional contentions. Commil argues that overturning the 

verdict requires reading a “simultaneity requirement” 

into the claims that is not there. Not so. In finding for 

Cisco, we do not require simultaneity; rather, we simply

adhere to the construction of the district court, which 

requires a separate copy of the protocol to be run for each 

connected device. Commil also contends that discarding 

its expert’s testimony about state information requires 

improperly presuming that “protocol” and “information” 

are mutually exclusive. But in making this argument, it 

is Commil who departs from the governing constructions 

in this case. Specifically, the district court construed 

“short-range communication protocol” to mean “a set of 

procedures required to initiate and maintain short-range 

communication between two or more devices.” J.A. 1. In

all of Commil’s expert testimony, nowhere does Commil’s 

expert provide evidence or reasonable support for his 

opinion that tracking separate state information for each 

device is the same as running, for each connected device,

a separate “set of procedures required to initiate and 

maintain short-range communication between two or 

more devices.” 

Because we find none of Commil’s other arguments 

persuasive, we conclude that substantial evidence does 

not support the jury’s necessary finding that Cisco’s

devices, when used, perform the “running” step of the 

claims. Because this conclusion precludes liability under 

either of Commil’s direct or inducement theories, we 

reverse the judgment of the district court. 

REVERSED

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