Opinion ID: 2668864
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Scope of Summary Judgment to SAP

Text: SAP’s declaratory judgment complaint sought broad declarations that “[n]either SAP nor its products have infringed” either the ’402 or ’502 patent. DataTern’s counterclaims were equally broad, alleging that SAP indirectly infringed the ’402 and ’502 patents based on “certain software programs and programming tools . . . including, inter alia, BusinessObjects . . . .” J.A. (SAP) 625. DataTern, however, never served infringement contentions on SAP that alleged infringement of the ’402 patent. And the infringement contentions alleging infringement of the ’502 patent relied solely on BusinessObjects, not any other SAP software. Nonetheless, based on the parties’ broad pleadings, the district court’s order granting summary judgment of noninfringement to SAP encompassed the ’402 patent and all SAP products “that were or could have been accused of infringing the ’402 patent.” SAP AG v. DataTern, Inc., C.A. No. 11-cv-02648KBF (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 19, 2012), ECF No. 211. DataTern argues that the scope of summary judgment should only include BusinessObjects and the ’502 patent, not all SAP products or the ’402 patent. It contends that BusinessObjects was the only product asserted by SAP as 20 MICROSOFT CORPORATION v. DATATERN, INC. a basis for the court’s jurisdiction in its declaratory judgment complaint and the only product identified in DataTern’s infringement contentions. While DataTern admits that it alleged that SAP infringed the ’402 patent in its counterclaims, it asserts that it never served infringement contentions regarding the ’402 patent. It argues that the infringement contentions, not the complaint, should determine the scope of the judgment. SAP responds that the scope of summary judgment properly included both patents and all SAP products. It asserts that SAP’s and DataTern’s broad pleadings confirm the breadth of their dispute. It contends that allowing DataTern to unilaterally remove the ’402 patent from this case by failing to file infringement contentions would give opportunistic patentees too much control over the scope of declaratory judgment actions initiated by the alleged infringers. We hold that the district court correctly included the ’402 patent in its summary judgment order. The court had declaratory judgment jurisdiction over SAP’s noninfringement challenge to the ’402 patent based, in part, on DataTern’s implied assertions of SAP’s indirect infringement of the ’402 patent evidenced in the claim charts provided in the customer suits. That DataTern later failed to file infringement contentions for the ’402 patent did not remove the ’402 patent from the case. SAP never abandoned its claim that the ’402 patent was not infringed, and DataTern did not covenant not to sue SAP on the ’402 patent after failing to file infringement contenMICROSOFT CORPORATION v. DATATERN, INC. 21 tions. Thus, the district court properly entered summary judgment of noninfringement of the ’402 patent to SAP. 7 However, we also hold that the district court erred in granting summary judgment of noninfringement to SAP for products other than BusinessObjects. Declaratory judgment jurisdiction must be determined on a productby-product basis. Sierra Applied Sci., Inc. v. Advanced Energy Indus., Inc., 363 F.3d 1361, 1373–74 (Fed. Cir. 2004). The claim charts from the customer suits impliedly asserted indirect infringement based on the use of BusinessObjects, not any other SAP product. While SAP’s complaint and DataTern’s counterclaims invoked SAP products generally, broad pleadings alone do not define the scope of judgment when only a subset of those issues were litigated. Tol-O-Matic, Inc. v. Proma Produkt-Und Mktg. Gesellschaft, 945 F.2d 1546, 1554–55 (Fed. Cir. 1991). Here, only BusinessObjects was fairly at issue, and the district court’s judgment could not have extended beyond BusinessObjects. We thus affirm-in-part and reverse-in-part the grant of summary judgment to SAP, and remand with orders that the district court modify the summary judgment order to cover only BusinessObjects.