Opinion ID: 2786705
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The ’075 patent (call rejection)

Text: The ’075 patent describes a method for allowing a user to reject an incoming call when the user is already active on another call. In particular, the ’075 patent describes a cell phone that allows a user, by pressing a key, to reject the incoming call. ’075 patent, 3:24–47. According to the ’075 patent, pressing this key sends a “rejection message” to the applicable cell tower, indicating that the mobile telecommunications network should immediately release (i.e., drop) the second incoming call because the receiving phone is “unavailab[le].” Id. at 3:63–4:21. MobileMedia asserts that Apple’s accused iPhones infringe apparatus claim 10, as well as method claims 5 and 6. For the purposes of this appeal, claim 10 of the ’075 patent is representative: 10. In a mobile communications device, apparatus in communication with a first calling station for selectably rejecting an incoming call, said apparatus comprising: a transceiver operable to send and receive trans- missions to and from a remote transceiver in a wireless system on a communications channel, said transceiver for receiving a transmission signifying that an incoming call is being attempted; and a control processor coupled to said transceiver, said control processor for determining if said incoming call is to be rejected, and, in response to a positive determination, said control processor for MOBILEMEDIA IDEAS LLC v. APPLE INC. 23 outputting a rejection message to said transceiver for transmission to said remote transceiver, wherein said rejection message comprises at least one information element indicating to the wireless system that the wireless system is to immediately release the incoming call on the communication channel between the mobile communications device and remote transceiver. ’075 patent (reexamination certificate), 1:26–45 (emphasis added). The parties agree that the asserted claims require a mobile phone, which is already active on a call (“in communication with a first calling station”), to receive an incoming second call, and send a “rejection message” to a cell tower (“remote transceiver”) in the mobile network. The “rejection message” notifies the wireless system to immediately release the incoming call. Id. at 1:40–42. The district court construed the term “immediately release” to require that “the wireless system must, without requiring any additional action by or communication from the mobile phone, ‘release the incoming call on the communication channel between the mobile phone and remote transceiver.’” MobileMedia SJ, 907 F. Supp. 2d at 591. Thus, the district court determined that the term “immediately” did not refer to a time period, but to an action, and specifically, to the absence of an action. Neither party disputes the district court’s construction on appeal. Both parties agree that Apple’s accused iPhones allow users to reject an incoming call while active on a first call by tapping an “ignore” icon on the iPhone’s screen, or alternatively, by pressing the power key twice. Id. at 592. The parties focused their arguments for infringement and invalidity on the contents of a comprehensive set of interrelated technical protocols developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute that together implement the Global System for Mobile communications 24 MOBILEMEDIA IDEAS LLC v. APPLE INC. (GSM) standard for cellular networks. See, e.g., J.A. 57185. Apple’s accused iPhones, which operate on GSM networks, were designed to comply with this GSM standard. Appellant’s Reply Br. 41. Relevant here, GSM 24.008 provides “core network protocols” that describe how mobile phones communicate with cell towers in a GSM network in order to make and receive calls and send and receive data. See generally J.A. 56260–56785. GSM 24.083 provides more specific protocols for implementing call waiting and call holding functions. See J.A. 56242– 59. These two protocols of the GSM standard supply the technical information necessary to implement the particular call waiting function at issue in MobileMedia’s crossappeal. Before the district court, Apple filed a motion for summary judgment of noninfringement on the ground that its accused iPhones do not practice the “rejection message” limitation of the asserted claims. In its motion, Apple did not contest that its accused iPhones implemented the relevant sections of the GSM 24.083 and GSM 24.008 protocols, but argued that these sections were outside the scope of the asserted claims of the ’075 patent. In particular, Apple argued that a user’s rejection of an incoming call did not “immediately release” the call because additional action by and communication from the accused iPhone was required in order to actually terminate and release the call. Id. Apple explained that according to the GSM 24.083 and GSM 24.008 protocols, when a user elects to “ignore” an incoming call, the mobile phone transmits a “DISCONNECT” message to the mo- bile network. J.A. 56250 (GSM 24.083, § 1.3.1). After receipt of this “DISCONNECT” message, the mobile network enters into a “release request” state for the call, and waits for further response from the mobile phone. J.A. 56455 (GSM 24.008, § 5.4.3.2); J.A. 56429 (GSM 24.008 § 5.1.2.2.13). The mobile phone then responds with a “RELEASE COMPLETE” message, and it is only MOBILEMEDIA IDEAS LLC v. APPLE INC. 25 after the mobile network receives this message that it releases the incoming call. J.A. 56455 (GSM 24.008 §§ 5.4.3.3, 5.4.3.4). MobileMedia responded that the entire exchange of messages should be considered to be “rejection messages.” MobileMedia SJ, 907 F. Supp. 2d at 592. MobileMedia also pointed to an “abnormal case” in the GSM 24.008 protocol, in which the “ignored” call is released after receipt of the “DISCONNECT” message without the usual exchange of further messages between the mobile phone and mobile network described above. Id. at 592. MobileMedia contended that in this “abnormal case,” the mobile network can release the call if no further communication from the mobile phone is received for the duration of two successive timer periods. Id.; see also J.A. 56455–56 (GSM 24.008, § 5.4.3.5). The district court granted Apple’s motion for summary judgment of noninfringement in part. MobileMedia SJ, 907 F. Supp. 2d at 593. It found that in the normal case, there was no genuine dispute that Apple’s iPhones did not meet the “immediately release” limitation of the asserted claims. Id. The district court determined, however, that there was still a question of fact as to whether the accused iPhones infringed under the GSM 24.008 protocol’s “abnormal case.” Id. Apple also filed a motion for summary judgment of invalidity based on obviousness, relying on disclosures in two different sections of prior versions of the same protocols in the GSM standard that MobileMedia relied on for evidence of infringement. Id. Specifically, GSM 04.08 and GSM 04.83—earlier versions of GSM 24.008 and GSM 24.083, respectively—were published more than three years before the earliest priority date of the ’075 26 MOBILEMEDIA IDEAS LLC v. APPLE INC. patent. Id. 5 Further, MobileMedia agreed, and does not dispute here, that the prior art GSM 04.83 and GSM 04.08 protocols are identical in all relevant aspects to their later-version counterparts (GSM 24.083 and GSM 24.008). Id. at 594. Whereas MobileMedia relied on Apple’s alleged implementation of GSM 24.008, § 5.4 (entitled “Call clearing”) for its infringement theory, Apple based its invalidity challenge on GSM 04.08, § 5.2.2 (entitled “Mobile terminating call establishment”). Id. Apple asserted that this section discloses a “RELEASE COMPLETE” message transmitted from a mobile phone to the mobile network that, unlike the “DISCONNECT” message relied on by MobileMedia to allege infringement, can release an incoming call without any further communication between the mobile phone and the network. Id. Apple contended that this message, in combination with GSM 04.83, §§ 1.1 and 1.3.1, which provide instructions for implementing call waiting functionality—including the treatment of incoming calls when a user is already active on a call, J.A. 57583—discloses every limitation of the ’075 patent’s asserted claims. MobileMedia SJ, 907 F. Supp. 2d at 595. The district court agreed that MobileMedia had not raised any genuine dispute that GSM 04.83 and GSM 04.08 disclose all limitations of the ’075 patent’s asserted 5 Before the district court (and here on appeal), Apple also contended that (i) the GSM 04.08 and GSM 04.83 standards should be treated as a single document, and thus anticipate the asserted claims, and (ii) the asserted claims of the ’075 patent were rendered obvious by the GSM 04.08 and GSM 04.83 standards in combination with the ’068 patent. MobileMedia SJ, 907 F. Supp. 2d at 595; Cross-Appellee’s Br. 67–69. We need not reach either of these issues to resolve this appeal. MOBILEMEDIA IDEAS LLC v. APPLE INC. 27 claims. Id. at 594. The district court, however, denied Apple’s summary judgment motion of invalidity because it found that a genuine dispute of material fact existed as to whether a person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two protocols in the GSM standard to arrive at the asserted claims. Id. at 595–96. At trial, the jury found that Apple’s accused iPhones infringed the asserted claims of the ’075 patent under the “abnormal” case described in GSM 24.008, § 5.4.3.5. MobileMedia JMOL, 966 F. Supp. 2d at 457. The jury also found that the asserted claims of the ’075 patent were not invalid. Id. at 455. The district court, however, granted Apple’s renewed motion for JMOL as to noninfringement and invalidity for obviousness. Id. at 457, 459. In its cross-appeal, MobileMedia contends that the district court erred in granting Apple’s JMOL motions because substantial evidence supports the jury’s verdict of both infringement and nonobviousness. We turn first to the district court’s grant of Apple’s JMOL motion of invalidity, which we review de novo. Bos. Scientific, 554 F.3d at 990. In evaluating that JMOL motion, the district court first noted that MobileMedia did not dispute that the GSM 04.08 and GSM 04.83 protocols disclose every limitation of the asserted claims. MobileMedia JMOL, 966 F. Supp. 2d at 454. Nor did Mo- bileMedia offer any evidence of objective indicia of nonobviousness. Id. Thus, as on summary judgment, the parties’ dispute centered on whether one with ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two GSM standards at the time of the alleged invention. The district court found that Apple’s expert provided several reasons that a skilled artisan would have combined the two relevant protocols of the GSM standard. Id. at 453. Apple’s expert explained that the GSM 04.08 (fundamental interactions between mobile phones and the mobile network) and 04.83 (specific call waiting and call holding functions) protocols were both part of the same 28 MOBILEMEDIA IDEAS LLC v. APPLE INC. comprehensive GSM standard published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute in 1995. Id. An Apple engineer testified that engineers routinely reference different “portions of the GSM standard[]” and that if an engineer needed to implement a particular mobile phone function according to the GSM standard, it was “trivial” to find the relevant sections in the GSM protocols because each protocol includes a detailed table of contents and index. Id.; J.A. 19941. Apple’s expert also explained that GSM 04.83 expressly references GSM 04.08 in numerous places, instructing that mobile phones “shall act in accordance with GSM 04.08” to implement the specific call waiting and call clearing functions relevant here, and that the referenced sections of the GSM 04.08 and GSM 04.83 protocols are labeled in a “similar” manner. MobileMedia JMOL, 966 F. Supp. 2d at 453; J.A. 20185–86. Specifically, GSM 04.83, § 1.1 is titled “Waiting call indication and confirmation” in the index, and the companion sections in GSM 04.08 are titled “Call indication” (§ 5.2.2.1) and “Call confirmation” (§ 5.2.2.3). Compare J.A. 57577 (table of contents for GSM 04.83), with J.A. 57175 (same for GSM 04.08). In contrast, MobileMedia’s expert testified that a person having ordinary skill in the art would have been discouraged from using GSM 04.08 to implement the rejection of an incoming call in a call waiting context because GSM 04.08 only describes how to handle a single call, not multiple calls. MobileMedia JMOL, 966 F. Supp. 2d at 454; J.A. 20482. The district court found, however, that this testimony could only support a jury verdict that the GSM 04.08 protocol in isolation did not render the asserted claims anticipated or obvious. MobileMedia JMOL, 966 F. Supp. 2d at 455. As to whether a skilled artisan, in view of both the GSM 04.08 and GSM 04.83 protocols in the GSM standard, would have been motivated to combine them, the district court noted that MobileMedia’s expert offered only conclusory testimony that MOBILEMEDIA IDEAS LLC v. APPLE INC. 29 “[GSM 04.83] is small, [GSM 04.08] is big.” Id.; J.A. 20482. But as the district court found, the fact that one protocol is “big” and one protocol is “small” in terms of its number of pages provides no counter to the testimony of Apple’s expert that it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to consult both GSM protocols to implement the claimed call waiting functionality by following the express references to GSM 04.08 within GSM 04.83 and using the detailed table of contents in GSM 04.08 to locate the relevant “Call indication” and “Call confirmation” sections within that document. MobileMedia JMOL, 966 F. Supp. 2d at 455. MobileMedia also argues that the rejection message disclosed in the GSM 04.08 protocol—which includes several fields providing information about the mobile phone sending the message to the mobile network—has one informational field suggesting that the mobile phone is not busy, and thus the skilled artisan would have been discouraged from combining GSM 04.08 with GSM 04.83, which addresses scenarios where the mobile phone is busy. Specifically, MobileMedia points to where GSM 04.08 indicates that the RELEASE COMPLETE message includes an informational field stating “cause #21 ‘call rejected.’” J.A. 57262 (GSM 04.08, § 5.2.2.3.1). MobileMedia’s expert testified that one of skill in the art, to understand the meaning of that text field, would have used the table of contents to locate the “Annex H” section of GSM 04.08 (which includes “GSM specific cause values for call control”), and find that “cause #21” indicates that “the equipment sending this cause does not wish to accept this call although it could have accepted the call because the equipment sending the cause is neither busy nor incompatible.” J.A. 20474–76; J.A. 57559–60 (GSM 04.08, 30 MOBILEMEDIA IDEAS LLC v. APPLE INC. Annex H and Annex H.1.9) (emphasis added). 6 Mo- bileMedia’s expert testified that “this message means I’m [not] busy” and that “to a person of ordinary skill, this message is sent only if [the mobile phone] is not busy.” J.A. 20476–77. The district court, however, correctly found that this testimony again failed to consider that the skilled artisan would be aware of both the GSM 04.08 and GSM 04.83 protocols. MobileMedia JMOL, 966 F. Supp. 2d at 456. The trial record shows that MobileMedia sought testimony from its expert only on “the ability of [GSM] 04.08 to be used to reject [a] second call.” J.A. 20474 (emphasis added). Thus, MobileMedia’s expert testified merely that a skilled artisan looking at this “cause value” would have “been discouraged from using this document [GSM 04.08]” and would have been “discouraged [after] looking at the document [GSM 04.08] and finding no help” for implementing the claimed invention. Id (emphases added). As the district court found, “MobileMedia’s validity theories did not address the fact that one of ordinary skill also knew the contents of GSM 04.83 and could start there.” MobileMedia JMOL, 966 F. Supp. 2d at 456 (emphasis added). And Apple demonstrated that after starting with GSM 04.83, a skilled artisan would have been led to GSM 04.08. In particular, GSM 04.83, § 1.1 (entitled “Waiting call indication and confirmation”) expressly instructs that a mobile phone and the mobile network should interact in 6 MobileMedia’s expert did not explain why one of skill in the art would allegedly rely on the indices provided in GSM 04.08 to locate more detailed definitions of certain terms, while at the same time ignoring the indices for the purpose of locating the similarly-titled call waiting protocol sections in GSM 04.08 expressly referenced by GSM 04.83. MOBILEMEDIA IDEAS LLC v. APPLE INC. 31 accordance with GSM 04.08 if a user receives an incoming call when the user is already active on a call. J.A. 57583. To release the incoming call, the mobile phone, inter alia, sends a “[call] clearing message” to the mobile network indicating that the user is busy. J.A. 57585 (GSM 04.83, § 1.3.1). GSM 04.08 discloses several types of “call clearing” messages and procedures for handling those messages. See J.A. 57174–75. One type of “call clearing” message is the “DISCONNECT” message that Mo- bileMedia relied on as evidence of infringement, which is described in §§ 5.4.2, 5.4.3.1, and 5.4.3.2, among others. Section 5.2.2.3.1 describes another type of “call clearing” message—a “RELEASE COMPLETE” message—that in some circumstances can be sent by the mobile phone instead of the “DISCONNECT” message, and is “pro- cessed” by the mobile network “in accordance with section 5.4.” J.A. 57262. 7 Relevant here, upon receipt of a “RELEASE COMPLETE” message, the mobile network releases the incoming call without waiting for additional communication from the mobile phone. J.A. 57273 (GSM 04.08, § 5.4.3.4). Thus, as Apple notes, it is the message (i.e., RELEASE COMPLETE), and not the text field within that message (e.g., “cause #21”), that prompts the mobile network to release the call. Indeed, the GSM standard requires that the mobile network “shall accept an incoming RELEASE COMPLETE message used to initiate the [call] clearing even though the cause information is not included.” J.A. 57272 (GSM 04.08, § 5.4.2) (emphasis added). On the basis of these findings, the district court concluded that even when resolving all disputed facts in MobileMedia’s favor, no reasonable jury could conclude that the asserted claims of the ’075 patent are not invalid 7 According to Apple, its accused iPhones do not implement this particular GSM protocol. J.A. 20185. 32 MOBILEMEDIA IDEAS LLC v. APPLE INC. as obvious over the GSM 04.08 and GSM 04.83 protocols in the GSM standard. MobileMedia JMOL, 966 F. Supp. 2d at 457. After careful examination of the record, we agree with the district court’s finding that no substantial evidence supports a determination that one of ordinary skill in the art would not have been motivated to combine §§ 1.1 and 1.3 of GSM 04.83 and § 5.2.2 of GSM 04.08. Similarly, we find no error in the district court’s ultimate conclusion that no reasonable jury could conclude that claims 5, 6, and 10 of the ’075 patent are not invalid as obvious in view of those two protocols in the GSM standard. We therefore affirm the district court’s grant of Apple’s motion for JMOL of invalidity of the asserted claims of the ’075 patent. We need not reach MobileMedia’s appeal from the district court’s grant of Apple’s motion for JMOL of noninfringement of those same claims.