Opinion ID: 209477
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Scope of Disclosure Duty

Text: Having concluded that Qualcomm, as a participant in the JVT prior to release of the H.264 standard, had a duty to disclose patents, we turn to the question of the scope of the disclosure duty. In Rambus, although the JEDEC IPR policy did not use the language related to, the parties consistently agreed that the policy required disclosure of patents related to the standardization work of the committee. Rambus, 318 F.3d at 1098. The parties disagreed, however, in their interpretation of related to. Id. at 1099. The court considered evidence regarding the JEDEC members' understanding of the JEDEC policy, and concluded that Rambus's duty to disclose extended only to claims in patents or applications that reasonably might be necessary to practice the standard. Id. at 1100. The court reasoned that, [t]o hold otherwise would contradict the record evidence and render the JEDEC disclosure duty unbounded. Under such an amorphous duty, any patent or application having a vague relationship to the standard would have to be disclosed. Id. at 1101. The court noted, [j]ust as lack of compliance with a well-defined patent policy would chill participation in open standard-setting bodies, after-the-fact morphing of a vague, loosely defined policy to capture actions not within the actual scope of that policy likewise would chill participation in open standard-setting bodies. Id. at 1102 n. 10. In the present case, the district court noted that the JVT IPR policies refer to IPR information associated with any standardization proposal or affecting the use of JVT work. Waiver Order at  (citing JVT ToR). Applying the reasoning of Rambus, the district court concluded that this language requires only that JVT participants disclose patents that reasonably might be necessary to practice the H.264 standard. Id. To hold otherwise, the district court explained, would render the JVT disclosure duty inappropriately `unbounded,' `amorphous,' and `vague.' Id. On appeal, Qualcomm argues that we should reject the district court's formulation of the reasonably might be necessary standard. Qualcomm characterizes the reasonably might be necessary formulation from Rambus as follows: it must be reasonably clear at the time that the patent or application would actually be necessary to practice the standard. Appellant's Reply Br. 20 (emphasis removed) (citing Rambus, 318 F.3d at 1100). Thus, according to Qualcomm, when the Rambus court explained the standard in terms of whether the patent or application reasonably might be necessary to practice the standard, the court really meant that the patent or application must  actually be necessary to practice the standard. Id. (emphasis added). Qualcomm submits that [i]t is nonsensical to conceive that an SSO would require disclosure to design a standard around a patent when the standard does not read on the patent in the first place. Id. at 21-22. We disagree with Qualcomm's characterization of the standard applied in Rambus. The plain language used by the Rambus court (reasonably might be necessary) contradicts Qualcomm's claim that the Rambus formulation requires that a patent must actually be necessary in order to trigger a disclosure duty. The Rambus court explained the reasonably might be necessary standard by stating that the disclosure duty operates when a reasonable competitor would not expect to practice the standard without a license under the undisclosed claims. Rambus, 318 F.3d at 1100-01. It further clarified that the reasonably might be necessary standard is an objective standard, which does not depend on a member's subjective belief that its patents do or do not read on the proposed standard. Id. at 1104. Likewise, in the present case, we agree with the district court that the language requires JVT participants to disclose patents that reasonably might be necessary to practice the H.264 standard. This is an objective standard, which applies when a reasonable competitor would not expect to practice the H.264 standard without a license under the undisclosed claims. This formulation does not require that the patents ultimately must actually be necessary to practice the H.264 standard.