Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01812/USCOURTS-ca13-14-01812-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Facebook, Inc.
Appellee
Rembrandt Social Media, LP
Appellant

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

FACEBOOK, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________ 

2014-1812

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Virginia in No. 1:13-cv-00158-TSETRJ, Judge T. S. Ellis III.

______________________ 

Decided: February 25, 2016

______________________ 

JOHN A. DRAGSETH, Fish & Richardson P.C., Minneapolis, MN, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by ROBERT E. HILLMAN, LAWRENCE K. KOLODNEY, 

Boston, MA; THOMAS M. MELSHEIMER, Dallas, TX; JOHN 

STEPHEN GOETZ, New York, NY; AHMED JAMAL DAVIS, 

Washington, DC.

THOMAS G. HUNGAR, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP, 

Washington, DC, argued for defendant-appellee. Also 

represented by BLAIR A. SILVER, LUCAS C. TOWNSEND; 

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2 REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP v. FACEBOOK, INC. 

HEIDI LYN KEEFE, MARK R. WEINSTEIN, Cooley LLP, Palo 

Alto, CA; MICHAEL GRAHAM RHODES, San Francisco, CA.

______________________ 

Before PROST, Chief Judge, DYK and TARANTO, Circuit 

Judges.

PROST, Chief Judge. 

Rembrandt Social Media, LP (“Rembrandt”) appeals 

from a final decision of the United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Virginia. Following a five-day 

jury trial, the district court held that asserted claims of 

U.S. Patent No. 6,415,316 (“’316 patent”) and U.S. Patent 

No. 6,289,362 (“’362 patent”) (collectively, “patents at 

issue”) were invalid and not infringed by Facebook, Inc. 

(“Facebook”). We affirm the district court’s noninfringement determinations and do not reach the issues 

with respect to validity. 

BACKGROUND

The patents at issue relate to web-based diary systems that allow non-technical users to post content on the 

internet. Users post content, such as text, images, videos, 

or links to other web pages, to personal diary pages, 

which appear as web pages in a browser. ’316 patent col. 

6 l. 30–col. 7. l. 20. 

The ’316 patent discloses methods for displaying and 

updating a diary page. A key limitation of the ’316 patent 

is “assembling the cohesive diary page by dynamically 

combining the content data and the page design in accordance with the configuration information.” This generally refers to the way in which diary pages are 

assembled. In a preferred embodiment in the ’316 patent, 

a “diary applet” performs this process by downloading

diary content (“content data”) and information about how 

the page should be displayed (“page design” and “configuration information”) from a central diary server and 

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REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP v. FACEBOOK, INC. 3

generating an HTML document for the requested diary 

page. Id. at col. 6 ll. 38–43. The generated page is then 

passed to the web browser for rendering and display. Id.

at col. 7 ll. 3–11.

Rembrandt asserts dependent claims 4, 20, and 26 of 

the ’316 patent. Representative claim 4 (and claim 1, 

from which it depends) recites:

1. A method of organizing information for display, 

comprising:

sending from a diary server to a user system, a 

diary program capable of being executed by a 

browser in the user system;

sending diary information from the diary server to 

the user system, the information comprising content data including an associated time, a page design to specify the presentation of the content 

data, and configuration information for controlling 

behavior of a cohesive diary page, the configuration information including privacy level information;

assembling the cohesive diary page by dynamically 

combining the content data and the page design in 

accordance with the configuration information for 

the cohesive diary page to be displayed by the diary program running in the browser;

receiving by the diary server at least one request 

for at least one change concerning the diary information, from the diary program in the user system; and

sending, by the diary server to the user system, 

new diary information for changing the cohesive 

diary page.

4. The method of claim 1 wherein the new diary 

information is for changing content of the diary 

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4 REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP v. FACEBOOK, INC. 

page without changing a general appearance of 

the diary page.

Id. at col. 23 l. 44–col. 24. l. 44, col. 24 ll. 47–49 (emphasis 

added).

The ’362 patent also describes displaying and updating a diary page, but focuses more specifically on using an 

“annotated universal address” (“AUA”) to transfer and 

display content. ’362 patent col. 1 l. 65–col. 2 l. 2. An 

AUA is a data structure, which contains a “universal 

address (e.g., a uniform resource locator or URL)” for a 

piece of content and “annotations,” which provide information on how the piece of content should be handled, 

such as expiration date, size, or privacy level. Id. at col. 6 

l. 53–col. 7 l. 15. Similar to the ’316 patent, a key limitation is “dynamically generating a page definition,” which 

also refers to the way in which diary pages are assembled. 

In a preferred embodiment, a “diary applet” will generate 

a page with content retrieved using an AUA and information about how the content should be displayed 

(“presentation context”). Id. at col. 7 ll. 32–65.

Rembrandt asserts dependent claim 8 of the ’362 patent. Claim 8 (and claim 1, from which it depends) of the 

’362 patent reads:

1. A computer-based method, comprising the steps 

of:

receiving from a client a request for access to a 

content object;

responsive to the request of the client, identifying 

an annotated universal address (AUA) having a 

universal address identifying a location of the content object and having an annotation authored by 

a content provider for controlling an aspect of a 

presentation of the object, the AUA being present 

in an AUA database containing one AUA;

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responsive to the request of the client, identifying 

a presentation context for controlling ion behavior 

of the object; and

transmitting to the client the presentation context, the AUA and an applet for dynamically generating a page definition for the presentation of 

the object, the page definition being generated 

from the presentation context and the AUA.

8. The method of claim 1 wherein the annotation 

further comprises:

at least one content provider authored restriction 

concerning subsequent presentation of the object.

Id. at col. 19 ll. 49–67, col. 21 ll. 64–67 (emphases added).

This appeal primarily concerns Facebook’s BigPipe 

technology, which was introduced in 2009. BigPipe is an 

optimization feature which allows Facebook pages to 

display more quickly. It accomplishes this by breaking 

down a Facebook page into smaller chunks, called “pagelets,” that can be loaded in parallel. As pagelets are 

retrieved to a user’s computer, client-side BigPipe code

inserts HTML pertaining to each pagelet into a single 

HTML document. If the HTML contains references to 

images, CSS, JavaScript, or other resources needed by the 

pagelet, the browser will download them. Once all of the 

HTML and supporting resources have been retrieved, the 

browser will display the Facebook page. 

Certain aspects of Facebook postings are also at issue. 

On Facebook, individual posts can be identified using a 

unique URL, or “permalink.” On the back-end, Facebook 

does not store permalinks in their entirety; instead, 

Facebook stores an identifier (such as an ID number) for

each individual post and programmatically constructs 

permalinks using this information. 

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6 REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP v. FACEBOOK, INC. 

PROCEDURAL HISTORY

On February 4, 2013, Rembrandt sued Facebook in 

the United States District Court for the Eastern District 

of Virginia. Following claim construction briefing, the 

parties agreed on the following relevant constructions:

Cohesive diary page (’316 patent): A diary page in 

which the content data and the page design are 

fully integrated for display.

Content data (’316 patent): Information that may 

be displayed to a user that is independent of the 

page design.

Dynamically generating a page definitions (’362

patent): Creating a page definition at the client at 

the time it is needed

Page definition (’362 patent): Information that 

completely defines the appearance of a page.

Annotated universal address (“AUA”) (’362 patent): Information consisting of the universal address and one or more annotations associated with 

it.

AUA database (’362 patent): A collection of one or 

more AUAs.

Universal address (’362 patent): Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

J.A. 145–47.

In addition, the district court gave the following construction: 

Assembling the cohesive diary page by dynamically combining the content data and the page design 

in accordance with the configuration information

(’316 patent): Forming the cohesive diary page to 

be displayed by combining, at the time of display, 

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the content data with the page design, to generate 

a definition that is in compliance with the configuration information. 

J.A. 148.

On December 3, 2013, the district court excluded a 

portion of Rembrandt’s validity expert report and the 

entirety of Rembrandt’s damages expert report. J.A. 32–

73. Rembrandt petitioned for permission to appeal, 

pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1292(b), the district court’s exclusion of its expert testimony on damages, which we denied. 

Rembrandt Social Media, LP v. Facebook, Inc., No. 14-

2011 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 7, 2014). Rembrandt also attempted 

to submit a supplemental expert report on damages and 

to offer a modified damages theory at trial. J.A. 3979–99. 

The district court rejected these efforts. J.A. 12–16, 19–

21.

The district court held a jury trial from June 9–12, 

2014. On June 13, 2014, the jury returned a verdict in 

favor of Facebook, finding the ’316 and ’362 patents were 

invalid and not infringed. J.A. 3–4. On July 11, 2014, 

Rembrandt filed motions for judgment as a matter of law

(“JMOL”) and a new trial, which the district court denied 

on August 8, 2014. J.A. 1.

In parallel, Facebook sought relief from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, filing a request for inter 

partes review (“IPR”) of claims of the ’316 patent, including claims (4, 20, and 26) at issue here, on February 6, 

2014. The IPR was instituted on July 7, 2014, nearly one 

month after the jury verdict. On July 22, 2015, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) issued a Final 

Written Decision finding that Facebook did not show that 

any of the challenged claims of the ’316 patent were

obvious by a preponderance of the evidence. Facebook, 

Inc. v. Rembrandt Social Media, L.P., IPR2014-00415, 

Paper 33 (PTAB June 22, 2015). 

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8 REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP v. FACEBOOK, INC. 

Rembrandt now appeals the denial of its post-trial 

motions for JMOL and a new trial. In addition, Rembrandt has filed a motion requesting that we apply the 

estoppel provisions of 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) and find that 

Facebook is estopped from challenging the validity of

claims 4, 20, and 26 of the ’316 patent in light of the 

PTAB’s IPR decision. This court has jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

DISCUSSION

The issues on appeal involve Rembrandt’s motion for 

JMOL and motion for a new trial. We take these in turn.

I. JMOL of Non-Infringement and Invalidity

We review a denial of a motion for JMOL under regional circuit law. Lazare Kaplan Int’l, Inc. v. Photoscribe 

Techs., Inc., 628 F.3d 1359, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2010). The 

Fourth Circuit reviews a denial of JMOL de novo. Johnson v. MBNA Am. Bank, NA, 357 F.3d 426, 431 (4th Cir. 

2004). “The question is whether a jury, viewing the 

evidence in the light most favorable to [the non-movant], 

could have properly reached the conclusion reached by 

this jury.” Id. (quoting Baynard v. Malone, 268 F.3d 228, 

234 (4th Cir. 2001)). “We must reverse if a reasonable 

jury could only rule in favor of [the movant]; if reasonable 

minds could differ, we must affirm.” Id. 

A. Non-Infringement

1. ’316 Patent

Rembrandt argues that BigPipe “assembl[es] the cohesive diary page” within the meaning of the ’316 patent

because the HTML that BigPipe supplies to the browser 

“fully integrat[es]” content and page design for display. 

Rembrandt acknowledges that the browser may still need 

to download images, CSS files, or other resources in order 

to render the page, but argues that this is of no consequence because BigPipe specifies the URLs (directly or 

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indirectly) from which these resources are downloaded. 

In essence, according to Rembrandt, at the moment of 

hand-off between BigPipe and the browser, the page is 

completely specified. No design or content choices are left 

to be made. Because of this, Rembrandt argues, there 

cannot be a legally sufficient evidentiary basis for the 

jury’s verdict. 

Rembrandt’s argument misses the point. While we 

agree that BigPipe reserves no content or design choice to 

the browser, the district court’s claim constructions—

which Rembrandt does not challenge—override these 

considerations. The district court construed “[a]ssembling 

the cohesive diary page by dynamically combining the 

content data and the page design in accordance with the 

configuration information” to mean “[f]orming the cohesive diary page to be displayed by combining, at the time 

of display, the content data with the page design, to 

generate a definition that is in compliance with the configuration information.” J.A. 148. The parties further 

agreed that “content data” means “[i]nformation that may 

be displayed to a user that is independent of the page 

design.” J.A. 145 (emphasis added). For example, when a 

user views a website, images, not URLs to images, are 

displayed to the user. Thus, the ’316 patent’s requirement of “dynamically combining content data and the 

page design” must be done where the actual image file is 

made available. It is the browser that downloads these 

bits and displays them on a page. Thus, this step is only 

completed after the hand-off from BigPipe to the browser. 

BigPipe cannot satisfy this limitation.1

 

1 We note that, although the error in Rembrandt’s 

argument is most easily illustrated with respect to BigPipe’s treatment of images, this analysis also applies to 

other types of “content data” discussed in the parties’ 

briefing, such as videos, CSS files, and Java files. In 

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10 REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP v. FACEBOOK, INC. 

This conclusion is bolstered by the testimony of Rembrandt’s own expert, who testified that “[a] photo can be 

content data.” J.A. 10717. Rembrandt’s expert also 

testified that the file for an image is retrieved by the 

browser, and not provided by BigPipe. J.A. 10721–22. On 

this record, the jury could have reasonably found that 

BigPipe does not “dynamically combin[e] the content data 

and the page design.” We cannot conclude that, construing the evidence in the light most favorable to Facebook, 

the jury could have “only rule[d] in favor of [Rembrandt].” 

Johnson, 357 F.3d at 431. 

2. ’362 Patent

Similar to the ’316 patent, Rembrandt argues that 

BigPipe “dynamically generat[es] a page definition” 

within the meaning of the ’362 patent because the HTML 

that BigPipe supplies to the browser “completely defines 

the appearance of a page.” Again Rembrandt presses that 

the browser’s subsequent downloading activities are 

irrelevant—“page definition” only requires a specification 

for building a page, which is what BigPipe supplies. 

Rembrandt also argues that the district court erred 

because there is no dispute that Facebook practices the 

“AUA database” limitation under the doctrine of equivalents. Specifically, Rembrandt contends that its expert 

gave unrebutted testimony that Facebook’s method of 

storing only identifiers was not substantially different 

from the ’362 patent’s method of storing URLs in AUAs, 

 

these cases as well, what gets displayed to the user is the 

video itself, the styles specified in the CSS files, and the 

programmatic behavior specified in the Java files, respectively. Arriving at this point of successful display requires the file themselves, which are downloaded by the 

browser, not BigPipe.

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providing the jury with no reasonable basis to find otherwise. 

Taking these arguments in reverse order, we disagree 

that the jury could not have reasonably concluded that 

Facebook did not practice an “AUA database” under the 

doctrine of equivalents. Rembrandt’s expert testified that 

the identifiers stored by Facebook and the URLs stored in 

AUAs operate in different universes: URLs can be used 

anywhere on the internet, whereas Facebook’s identifiers 

are used inside the closed Facebook system. J.A. 10726. 

Viewing this testimony in the light most favorable to 

Facebook, the jury could have reasonably concluded that 

the differences between these approaches were not insubstantial. On this basis alone, then, we must affirm the 

jury’s finding of non-infringement.

Because we can affirm the jury’s non-infringement 

verdict based on the “AUA database” limitation, we need 

not reach Rembrandt’s arguments with respect to the 

separate “dynamically generating a page definition” 

limitation. We therefore conclude that the district court 

did not err in denying Rembrandt’s motion for JMOL of 

infringement. 

B. Validity

Rembrandt also challenges the jury verdicts invalidating the ’316 and ’362 patents. However, because Facebook asserted invalidity only as an affirmative defense 

and there is no separate declaration of invalidity in the 

judgment in the case, we need not address invalidity once 

we have affirmed non-infringement. Solomon Techs., Inc. 

v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 524 F.3d 1310, 1319 (Fed. Cir. 

2008) (“Where invalidity is raised as an affirmative defense, however, it is not necessary for the reviewing court 

to address the validity issue.”). In exercising this option, 

we rely on the well-established rule of federal preclusion 

law that will deny issue-preclusive effect to the invalidity 

rulings because we leave them unreviewed as unnecesCase: 14-1812 Document: 66-2 Page: 11 Filed: 02/25/2016
12 REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP v. FACEBOOK, INC. 

sary to the judgment. Fairbrook Leasing, Inc. v. Mesaba 

Aviation, Inc., 519 F.3d 421, 428 (8th Cir. 2008); Levine v. 

McLeskey, 164 F.3d 210, 213 (4th Cir. 1998); Greene v. 

United States, 79 F.3d 1348, 1352 (2d Cir. 1996); In re 

PCH Assocs., 949 F.2d 585, 593 (2d Cir. 1991); 18 Charles 

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

Federal Practice and Procedure § 4432 & n.24 (2d ed. 

2002) (citing In re Peters, 642 F.3d 381, 385–386 (2d Cir. 

2011)); Restatement (Second) of Judgments § 27 cmt. o

(1982); see also Hill-Rom Co. v. Kinetic Concepts, Inc., 209 

F.3d 1337, 1344 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (“[T]he district court’s 

resolution of the issue of invalidity was not necessary to 

the judgment. For that reason, the court’s invalidity 

ruling will have no collateral estoppel effect in any possible future dispute between the parties involving the ’346 

patent.”); cf. Aqua Marine Supply v. AIM Machining, Inc., 

247 F.3d 1216, 1221 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (“In a future action, 

it is possible that Aqua Marine could avoid collateral 

estoppel by arguing that it did not have a full and fair 

opportunity to litigate the issue of invalidity.”). 

For the same reason, we do not reach Rembrandt’s 

specific request that we vacate the invalidity ruling 

regarding the ’316 patent by applying 35 U.S.C § 315(e) to 

the final written decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal 

Board. Here too we rely on the absence of any prospective 

effect of the district court’s invalidity rulings.

C. Evidentiary Rulings

Finally, Rembrandt argues that the district court 

abused its discretion in excluding portions of its validity 

opinions, in excluding its damages expert, and in ruling 

that it could not otherwise present any evidence of damages to the jury. Because we affirm on non-infringement, 

we need not reach these issues.

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II. Motion for a New Trial

The law of the regional circuit also governs a motion 

for a new trial. Bettcher Indus., Inc. v. Bunzl USA, Inc., 

661 F.3d 629, 638 (Fed. Cir. 2011). In the Fourth Circuit, 

“[a] district court’s denial of a motion for a new trial is 

reviewed for abuse of discretion, and will not be reversed 

save in the most exceptional circumstances.” Minter v. 

Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., 762 F.3d 339, 346 (4th Cir. 2014)

(internal quotation marks omitted).

Rembrandt maintains that it is entitled to a new trial 

because the district court improperly intervened during 

the proceedings. At trial, the district court interrupted 

the examination of a Facebook fact witness and asked 

questions about the infringement issues to which he was 

testifying, one of which mentioned the claim term “cohesive diary page.” J.A. 10769. The district court also 

questioned witnesses at other points in the trial, including asking Rembrandt’s fact witnesses about financial 

interest and Rembrandt’s expert about internet history, a 

background topic she volunteered on direct. J.A. 10648, 

10658–59, 10675–76. According to Rembrandt, this 

involvement revealed prejudice and improperly swayed 

the jury. 

A district court may interrogate witnesses under Federal Rule of Evidence 614(b). It is “settled beyond doubt 

that in a federal court the judge has the right, and often 

an obligation, to interrupt the presentations of counsel in 

order to clarify misunderstandings or otherwise insure 

that the trial proceeds efficiently and fairly.” United 

States v. Cole, 491 F.2d 1276, 1278 (4th Cir. 1974). When 

a district court exercises this right, its conduct is reviewed 

for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Villarini, 238 

F.3d 530, 536 (4th Cir. 2001). “A new trial is required 

only if the resulting prejudice was so great ‘that it denied 

any or all the appellants a fair, as distinguished from a 

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14 REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP v. FACEBOOK, INC. 

perfect, trial.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Parodi, 703 

F.2d 768, 776 (4th Cir. 1983)).

None of the interventions identified by Rembrandt 

amount to abuse of discretion. In questioning Facebook’s 

fact witness on infringement issues, the district court was 

simply clarifying issues for the jury. Even the exchange 

that invoked the “cohesive diary page” term—the intervention Rembrandt complains of most—simply clarified 

testimony that Facebook’s fact witness had already given 

about the interaction between BigPipe and the browser. 

Compare, e.g., J.A. 10759, with J.A. 10764. It was within 

the district court’s discretion to do so, particularly given 

the highly technical nature of the technology at issue. 

Other interjections operated in a similar way: questions 

about financial interest clarified testimony about why 

Rembrandt’s witnesses had come to testify, J.A. 10648, 

10658–59, and questions about internet history clarified 

Rembrandt’s expert’s knowledge about a topic to which 

she opened the door, J.A. 10675–76. Moreover, to the 

extent Rembrandt disagreed with the district court’s 

conduct, it had ample opportunity for curative measures, 

including cross-examination, opportunities for rebuttal 

testimony from Rembrandt’s expert, and jury instructions. None of the conduct Rembrandt identifies persuades us that it was not given a “fair, as distinguished 

from a perfect, trial.” Villarini, 238 F.3d at 536. The 

district court did not abuse its discretion.

CONCLUSION

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s determination that the asserted claims are not infringed and its 

denial of Rembrandt’s request for a new trial. 

AFFIRMED

COSTS

Each party shall bear its own costs.

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