Opinion ID: 855433
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the district court erred in denying jmol of

Text: NONINFRINGEMENT The Tenth Circuit reviews de novo the denial of a motion for JMOL, and reapplies the district court’s standard of review. Miller v. Eby Realty Group LLC, 396 F.3d 1105, 1110-11 (10th Cir. 2005). JMOL is proper when “the evidence and all inferences to be drawn therefrom are so clear that reasonable minds could not differ on the conclusion.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Moreover, review of a jury verdict is “limited to determining whether that verdict is supported by substantial evidence when the record is viewed in the light defer to the magistrate judge’s factual findings, as it is required to do when reviewing a pretrial order. Fed. R. Civ. P. 72(a). 10 ADAMS & ASSOC v. DELL COMPUTER most favorable to the prevailing party.” 8 Beck v. N. Natural Gas Co., 170 F.3d 1018, 1021 (10th Cir. 1999). The evidence presented in PMAA’s briefing to this court can be summarized into two categories: evidence of ASUS’s allegedly infringing IFDC.exe program and evidence of ASUS’s allegedly infringing certification testing of its motherboards. 9 On appeal, ASUS contends this 8 As a preliminary matter, PMAA argues ASUS was precluded from challenging the jury verdict regarding claim 12, the only method claim, because claim 12 was not challenged in ASUS’s Rule 50(a) motion for JMOL. However, PMAA did not raise this issue before the district court, and instead represented that ASUS’s 50(b) motion, which included the challenge to claim 12, was “simply a rehash” of its earlier 50(a) motion. J.A.6465; see also J.A.6476, 6488. Therefore, it is proper to review the JMOL in its entirety, including the challenge to claim 12. Guides, Ltd. v. Yarmouth Grp. Prop. Mgmt., Inc., 295 F.3d 1065, 1076 n.3 (10th Cir. 2002) (“When the non-moving party fails to raise the inadequacy of a Rule 50(a) motion in opposition to a Rule 50(b) motion, that party cannot raise waiver as an argument on appeal.”). 9 PMAA maintains that it has more evidence than this, but the record does not support these assertions. For instance, PMAA’s opening brief argues that “[t]here is substantial evidence that ASUS’[s] infringing testing was not limited to IFDC.EXE in 2000.” PMAA’s Opening Br. at 46. However, the citations PMAA provides in this section refer to a detector program provided by ASUS to Winbond in January 2000, which is the very IFDC.exe program and 1999-2000 timeframe PMAA seeks to disclaim. Any listed citations that do not relate to IFDC.exe do not appear to implicate ASUS at all. See Trial Ex. 29 at J.A.7281 (regarding testing efforts undertaken by Winbond using test software provided by ASUS in January 2000); Trial Ex. 30 at J.A.7299 (referring to the same); ADAMS & ASSOC v. DELL COMPUTER 11 evidence is insufficient to show infringement within the United States during the six years before the infringement claim was filed. With respect to the first category of evidence, PMAA submitted evidence showing that ASUS’s IFDC.exe program infringed the ’002 patent. PMAA argues ASUS’s use of the IFDC.exe program within the United States is sufficient to support a jury verdict of infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(a). However, evidence of the IFDC.exe program is limited to the 2000 time period, over six years before PMAA filed its claim for patent infringement against ASUS. Title 35 U.S.C. § 286 sets forth a limitation on damages: Except as otherwise provided by law, no recovery shall be had for any infringement committed more than six years prior to the filing of the complaint or counterclaim for infringement in the action. In applying this section, “one starts from the filing of a complaint or counterclaim and counts backward to determine the date before which infringing acts cannot give rise to a right to recover damages.” Standard Oil Co. v. Nippon Shokubai Kagaku Kogyo Co., Ltd., 754 F.2d 345, 348 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (emphases in original). Here, PMAA may not recover for infringing acts taking place before May 3, 2001, six years before it brought suit against ASUS. PMAA provided evidence that the IFDC.exe Trial Ex. 35 at 7303 (referring to same); Trial Ex. 84 at 7325 (referring to same); Trial Ex. 369 at J.A.7472 (referring to same); Trial Ex. 98 at J.A.7335 (emails primarily between Winbond and HP employees, one of which was sent to ASUS employees but otherwise making no reference to ASUS); Trial Ex. 155 at J.A.7357 (same). 12 ADAMS & ASSOC v. DELL COMPUTER program was completed in 2000, and was sent to Winbond and HP on January 27, 2000. ASUS employees may have used the IFDC.exe program on HP products during a trip to Cupertino, California in early 2000. These events all occurred in 2000, over six years before PMAA filed suit against ASUS. Accordingly, the IFDC.exe evidence cannot form the basis for the jury verdict of infringement. 10 With respect to PMAA’s second category of evidence, PMAA presented testimony that ASUS engaged in certification testing of its motherboards, including stress tests, Federal Communications Commission certification tests, European Conformity certifications tests, and Windows operating system compliance tests. PMAA argues this certification testing infringed the ’002 patent and that ASUS’s motherboards were “made by” this allegedly infringing testing such that importation of the mother- 10 ASUS filed U.S. Patent Application 09/976,063 (“the ’063 application”) on October 15, 2001, entitled Method for Preventing Data Corruption by a Floppy Diskette Controller, but abandoned it in 2005. PMAA argues that “[b]ecause of the great deal of evidence spoliated by ASUS, and the related jury instruction, the jury was free to infer that [the infringing IFDC.exe] testing had occurred in the United States up until at least 2005 when ASUS finally abandoned its U.S. patent application.” PMAA’s Opening Br. at 49-50 (emphasis added). However, even this argument appears to concede that, absent the adverse inference jury instruction, it is not reasonable to infer the existence of infringing testing based solely on the prosecution of a patent application. See Sunward Corp. v. Dun & Bradstreet, Inc., 811 F.2d 511, 521 (10th Cir. 1987) (“Although a jury is entitled to draw reasonable inferences from circumstantial evidence, reasonable inferences themselves must be more than speculation and conjecture.”). ADAMS & ASSOC v. DELL COMPUTER 13 boards into the United States constituted infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(g). However, this argument fails on two counts. First, the record does not show that the certification testing constituted infringement of the ’002 patent. When asked on cross examination whether any of the certification testing ran a detector program to reveal an FDC defect and thereby infringed the ’002 patent, PMAA’s expert Dr. Kraft testified that such proof was “in a test report.” J.A.4698. Dr. Kraft then admitted that “if it [was] not in the test report . . . , then [he had] no evidence.” Id. In its brief, PMAA does not assert that the referenced test report had any such information, but simply argues that the certification testing logically must include FDC testing. The fact that ASUS’s certification testing comprehensively tested all parts of the machine does not show that ASUS infringed the ’002 patent by forcing a data underrun to detect an FDC defect. Second, even assuming the certification testing constituted infringement of the ’002 patent, the motherboards were not “made by” the certification testing pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 271(g). The mere “production of information is not covered” by § 271(g). Bayer AG v. Housey Pharm., Inc., 340 F.3d 1367, 1377 (Fed. Cir. 2003). PMAA’s argument that ASUS’s certification testing was “integrated into ASUS’[s] manufacturing process” is thus unpersuasive. PMAA’s Opening Br. at 57. Rather, the certification testing constituted mere “production of information” that ASUS’s motherboards were or were not compliant with certification standards. Accordingly, certification testing was not part of the process to “make” the motherboards. PMAA thus cannot show that ASUS’s importation of motherboards into the United States constitutes infringement under § 271(g). 11 11 ASUS also argues that Winbond’s post-verdict settlement agreement with PMAA releases ASUS from infringement liability. This settlement agreement grant14 ADAMS & ASSOC v. DELL COMPUTER In sum, PMAA has failed to present substantial evidence of infringement within the United States after May 3, 2001. Accordingly, the district court erred in denying ASUS’s post-verdict motion for JMOL, and this court reverses that determination.