Opinion ID: 2827015
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Publicly Available Information

Text: Keranos next argues that its original infringement contentions identified as specifically as possible each accused product of which it was aware. To show its diligence, Keranos submitted a declaration from its principal, Nicholas Gross, that detailed the number of hours spent reviewing datasheets, reverse-engineering products, and searching public information sources to identify potentially infringing products. J.A. 1142–43. Keranos asserts that much of the publicly available information was insufficient to identify accused products, because it did not indicate whether the products were available during the 2004 to 2008 period for which Keranos alleged damages or whether the products had SuperFlash memory, instead of the more generic “flash” memory. The public documents that identified only “flash” memory were insufficient to accuse the products of infringing the asserted patents because, according to Keranos, SuperFlash refers to a narrow subset of flash products, while Keranos’s efforts to reverse-engineer some “flash” memory products did not consistently identify the use of SuperFlash memory. Keranos argues that the local patent rules do not require that it reverse-engineer all of the thousands of potentially infringing products. See STMicroelectronics, 308 F. Supp. 2d at 755 (“[T]he question of whether [the disclosing party] conducted ‘reverse engineering or its equivalent’ is not synonymous with whether it has complied with Patent [Rule] 3-1, which, as discussed, requires only to set forth specific theories of infringement.” (quoting Network Caching Tech., LLC v. Novell, Inc., No. C-01-2079, 2003 WL 21699799, –5 (N.D. Cal. Mar. 21, 2003))). Keranos further asserts that publicly available information did not exist for some of appellees’ products. For example, the parties agree that TSMC’s product numbers cannot be identified by public sources. See J.A. 1819 (appellees’ opposition to Keranos’s motions for leave to 20 KERANOS, LLC v. SILICON STORAGE TECHNOLOGY, INC. amend infringement contentions, stating that “Keranos could have identified virtually all of the products it seeks to add had it exercised diligence in the two years after it filed the complaint (with TSMC as an exception)”). Keranos also suggests that because Samsung did not oppose its motions for leave to amend infringement contentions, there is no evidence that any Samsung product could have been identified in the original infringement contentions using publicly available information. Appellees respond that because Keranos did not perform a sufficient search for publicly available information prior to serving its original infringement contentions, it is irrelevant whether information was publicly available or not. To support this contention, appellees point to public documents for some of the new products in Keranos’s amended infringement contentions that mention the word “SuperFlash.” Appellees also point to public documents for some of the new products that, while they do not mention SuperFlash technology, contain the same type of information as the documents Keranos relied on to accuse the products in its original infringement contention. In denying Keranos’s motions for leave to amend infringement contentions, the district court found that Keranos had not shown it diligently searched for and identified infringing products based on all the publicly available information. J.A. 8. The record indicates, however, that publicly available information might not have been available for the products of some appellees and, thus, Keranos could not have been more diligent with respect to those appellees. We therefore vacate and remand the district court’s order denying Keranos’s motions for leave to amend infringement contentions. On remand, the district court should consider, on at least a party-by-party basis, whether Keranos has shown good cause to amend its infringement contentions. KERANOS, LLC v. SILICON STORAGE TECHNOLOGY, INC. 21 Importantly, we do not hold that the district court must determine whether Keranos has shown good cause to amend its infringement contentions on a product-byproduct basis, although the district court may deem it necessary to do so. We recognize that analyzing documents on a product-by-product basis might place an undue strain on the judicial resources of the district court, particularly here, where thousands of products are at issue. We also recognize that district courts have broad discretion to manage their cases, and we therefore limit our holding to the specific facts of this case. The circumstances presented in other cases may require that a district court look at each new product in proposed amended infringement contentions to determine whether a patent owner satisfied the local rules. Here, however, if a company makes product numbers publicly available as a general practice, the newly accused product names and numbers appear to follow this general practice, and public information accompanying those product numbers would have allowed Keranos to identify that those products included the accused technology, the district court may well be within its discretion to refuse to allow Keranos to add to its contentions a handful of products for which it claims there was no publicly available information.