Court Opinion

ID: 9944039
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-26 16:02:44.288079+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:55:10.277934
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1391    Document: 70     Page: 1   Filed: 02/26/2024

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

          FRESHUB, INC., FRESHUB, LTD.,
               Plaintiffs-Appellants

                             v.

   AMAZON.COM, INC., PRIME NOW, LLC, WHOLE
  FOODS MARKET SERVICES, INC., AMAZON.COM
                SERVICES LLC,
           Defendants-Cross-Appellants
             ______________________

                   2022-1391, 2022-1425
                  ______________________

    Appeals from the United States District Court for the
 Western District of Texas in No. 6:21-cv-00511-ADA, Judge
 Alan D. Albright.
                   ______________________

                Decided: February 26, 2024
                 ______________________

     PAUL J. ANDRE, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP,
 Redwood Shores, CA, argued for plaintiffs-appellants. Also
 represented by JAMES R. HANNAH, LISA KOBIALKA;
 CRISTINA MARTINEZ, New York, NY.

     J. DAVID HADDEN, Fenwick & West LLP, Mountain
 View, CA, argued for defendants-cross-appellants. Also
 represented by RAVI RAGAVENDRA RANGANATH, SAINA S.
 SHAMILOV; TODD RICHARD GREGORIAN, ERIC YOUNG, San
 Francisco, CA.
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 2                          FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

                   ______________________

     Before REYNA, TARANTO, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
 TARANTO, Circuit Judge.
      Freshub, Ltd. and United States subsidiary Freshub,
 Inc. (together, Freshub) sued Amazon.com, Inc. and several
 of its subsidiaries (together, Amazon) in the Western Dis-
 trict of Texas, asserting infringement of Freshub’s patents
 on voice-processing technology, including U.S. Patent No.
 9,908,153. As relevant here, Amazon denied infringement
 and also asserted, as a defense, that the patent should be
 declared unenforceable based on inequitable conduct as-
 sertedly committed by Freshub’s parent company, Ikan
 Holdings LLC, in the Patent and Trademark Office—spe-
 cifically, in its successful petition to revive the earlier-
 abandoned U.S. Patent Application No. 11/301,291, from
 which all of Freshub’s asserted patents descend. A jury
 found that Amazon did not infringe the asserted claims of
 Freshub’s three asserted patents, while rejecting Amazon’s
 invalidity challenge—specifically, invalidity for lack of ad-
 equate written description. J.A. 6–14. The district court
 later denied Freshub’s post-trial motions challenging the
 verdict. Freshub, Inc. v. Amazon.com Inc., 576 F. Supp. 3d
 458, 461 (W.D. Tex. 2021) (Post-Trial Opinion). Between
 the jury trial and the ruling on those post-trial motions, the
 court conducted a bench trial, in which no live testimony
 was presented, and found that Amazon had failed to prove
 the asserted inequitable conduct by clear and convincing
 evidence. Freshub, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 21-cv-511
 (W.D. Tex. Aug. 3, 2021), ECF No. 272 (Inequitable Con-
 duct Opinion).
     Freshub timely appealed. It argues that it is entitled
 to judgment as a matter of law that Amazon infringed the
 ’153 patent, and it seeks a new trial overall because of as-
 sertedly prejudicial statements by Amazon at trial. Ama-
 zon timely cross-appealed. It seeks reversal of the district
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 FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.                           3

 court’s finding that it failed to prove inequitable conduct.
 We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1). We af-
 firm.
                               I
                              A
     The ’153 patent claims a voice-processing system that
 receives “user spoken words” and adds items to lists based
 on those words. ’153 patent, col. 14, line 46, through col.
 15, line 12. The specification discloses a variety of systems
 for shopping-list management, some of which use voice-
 processing technology. Id., col. 8, lines 17–55. For exam-
 ple, in one embodiment, the system, in response to a “ver-
 bal[] order[]” for “a cereal by name,” “translates the name
 into text or other computer readable form, and matches the
 text with text stored in association with a SKU [Stock
 Keeping Unit] (or other identifier) to locate the correct
 SKU.” Id., col. 8, lines 49–55.
     Claim 1, the sole independent claim, reads:
     1. A voice processing system comprising:
     a first system configured to receive user spoken
     words comprising:
         a microphone;
         a wireless network interface;
         a digitizer coupled to the microphone,
         wherein the digitizer is configured to con-
         vert spoken words into a digital represen-
         tation;
         a first computer;
         non-transitory memory that stores instruc-
         tions that when executed by the first com-
         puter cause the first system to perform
         operations comprising:
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 4                           FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

             receive via the digitizer a verbal or-
             der, comprising at least one item,
             from a user, wherein the verbal or-
             der was captured by the micro-
             phone and digitized by the
             digitizer;
             immediately transmit, using the
             wireless network interface, the dig-
             itized order to a computer system
             remote from the first system;
     the computer system, the computer system com-
     prising:
         a networks interface;
         a second computer;
         non-transitory memory that stores instruc-
         tions that when executed by the second
         computer cause the computer system to
         perform operations comprising:
             receive, using the network inter-
             face, the digitized order from the
             first system;
             translate at least a portion of the
             digitized order to text;
             identify an item corresponding to
             the text;
             add the identified item to a list as-
             sociated with the user;
             enable the list, including the iden-
             tified item, to be displayed via a
             user display.
 Id., col. 14, line 46, through col. 15, line 12 (emphasis added
 to highlight claim language chiefly at issue on appeal).
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      Amazon sells consumer devices, such as the Amazon
 Echo, into which a user can speak to connect to a respon-
 sive voice service (called Alexa) that can perform a variety
 of voice-processing tasks. Amazon’s Response Br. at 11–
 12. Among the voice-processing tasks is the maintenance
 of a shopping list, using user-provided prompts to modify a
 stored “shopping list” associated with the user. Id. at 14.
 Freshub accuses Amazon of infringing the ’153 patent by
 its offering of the Echo and other devices for use with this
 shopping-list feature. Freshub’s Opening Br. at 12; J.A.
 575 (testimony by Freshub’s expert mapping the ’153 pa-
 tent claims to the “Shopping List functionality”).
                              B
      After trial in June 2021, the jury returned a verdict of
 noninfringement of all asserted claims, including those of
 the ’153 patent. Freshub sought judgment as a matter of
 law of infringement under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
 50(b), arguing that the jury’s verdict was not supported by
 substantial evidence. The district court disagreed. With
 respect to the ’153 patent, the court concluded, among
 other things, that substantial evidence supported a finding
 that the accused Amazon features did not meet the claim
 requirement—which was not the subject of any requested
 or issued claim construction—that the system “identify an
 item corresponding to the text.” Post-Trial Opinion, 576 F.
 Supp. 3d at 463. The court noted the testimony of Ama-
 zon’s expert that, although the Alexa shopping-list feature
 adds text to a user’s shopping list, it does not add “an item
 corresponding to the text,” as the claim requires. Id.
     Freshub also sought a new trial under Federal Rule of
 Civil Procedure 59(a) on the ground that Amazon had made
 certain prejudicial statements at trial, the “main basis” be-
 ing references to the fact that Freshub is an Israeli com-
 pany. Id. at 465; see J.A. 17411–16. Citing the absence of
 objection during trial and the standard requiring a “seri-
 ous[ effect on] the fairness, integrity, or public reputation
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 6                          FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

 of judicial proceedings,” Post-Trial Opinion, 576 F. Supp.
 3d at 466 (quoting Reese v. Mercury Marine Division of
 Brunswick Corp., 793 F.2d 1416, 1429 (5th Cir. 1986)), the
 district court concluded that Freshub’s allegations were
 “baseless” and denied the motion. Id. at 466–67. The dis-
 trict court did not separately discuss certain other argu-
 ments about prejudicial statements warranting a new
 trial—e.g., statements that Freshub filed the application
 that became the ’153 patent after Amazon announced rele-
 vant products, so that finding for Freshub would offend the
 Constitution’s patent policy, and that Freshub initially
 abandoned the ancestor application, J.A. 17416–20. Ear-
 lier, Freshub had filed a motion in limine to preclude refer-
 ence to the filing dates, but the court denied the motion.
 Freshub, Inc. v. Amazon.com Inc., No. 21-cv-511, 2021 WL
 2587713, at *1 (W.D. Tex. Jun. 13, 2021). And during trial,
 after initially allowing the mention of abandonment, the
 court excluded the evidence and gave a curative instruction
 at Freshub’s request. See J.A. 17419–20, 17420 n.3 (noting
 curative instruction).
                              C
      Amazon asserted, as an affirmative defense to infringe-
 ment, that inequitable conduct in the prosecution of the
 ’291 application, from which all of the asserted patents
 here descend, rendered the asserted patents unenforcea-
 ble. In June 2011, when Ikan Technologies Inc. was the
 assignee of the ’291 application, the United States Patent
 and Trademark Office (PTO) issued a final office action re-
 jecting the claims. J.A. 17056–65. On January 3, 2012,
 after Ikan Technologies failed to respond in the time al-
 lowed, the PTO sent counsel for Ikan Technologies a notice
 of abandonment of the application. J.A. 17067–68. On De-
 cember 4, 2012, Ikan Technologies assigned a number of
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 FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.                           7

 patent interests, including the interest in the ’291 applica-
 tion, to Ikan Holdings. J.A. 17070–72. 1
      On January 20, 2017, counsel for Ikan petitioned the
 PTO to revive the ’291 application under 37 C.F.R.
 § 1.137(a). J.A. 17079–80. Reflecting a prerequisite to re-
 vival, the pre-printed PTO form for the petition, referring
 to the period reaching back to the due date of the reply to
 the final office action, contained the following
     STATEMENT: The entire delay in filing the re-
     quired reply from the due date for the required re-
     ply until the filing of a grantable petition under 37
     CFR 1.137(a) was unintentional. [NOTE: The
     United States Patent and Trademark Office may
     require additional information if there is a question
     as to whether either the abandonment or the delay
     in filing a petition under 37 CFR 1.137(a) was un-
     intentional (MPEP 711.03(c), subsections (III)(C)
     and (D)).]
 J.A. 17080. Ikan’s attorney signed the form, thus making
 the above-quoted statement. Id. On April 20, 2017, the
 PTO granted the petition, J.A. 17074–76, stating that it
 was “relying on petitioner’s duty of candor and good faith
 and accepting the statement that ‘the entire delay in filing
 the required reply from the due date for the reply until the
 filing of a grantable petition pursuant to 37 CFR 1.137 was
 unintentional,’” J.A. 17075 (citation omitted).
     Amazon alleged and sought to prove that Ikan had in-
 tentionally misrepresented to the PTO that the ’291 appli-
 cation had been unintentionally abandoned when it had
 instead been intentionally abandoned. J.A. 17127–37. The
 district court conducted a bench trial on that issue, in

    1   Following the usage of the parties and the district
 court, we hereafter use “Ikan” to refer to the two Ikan en-
 tities without distinction, unless otherwise indicated.
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 8                          FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

 which the evidence consisted of documents and deposition
 excerpts. J.A. 26–27. Although the evidence was limited
 for various reasons, including the invocation of attorney-
 client privilege, no issue is raised on appeal about the scope
 of the record.
      Upon concluding that Amazon had failed to prove ineq-
 uitable conduct by the requisite clear and convincing evi-
 dence, the district court granted Freshub partial judgment
 rejecting the inequitable-conduct defense. Inequitable
 Conduct Opinion at 14. 2 Specifically, the district court
 found that, while the parties did not dispute the material-
 ity of the representation that the application had been un-
 intentionally abandoned, Amazon had not offered clear and
 convincing evidence that the representation was actually
 false—i.e., that Ikan had in fact intentionally abandoned
 the ’291 application. Id. at 9–10. The district court also
 found that, even if the representation had actually been
 false (i.e., even if Ikan had intentionally abandoned the ap-
 plication), Amazon had not offered clear and convincing ev-
 idence that the “single most reasonable inference” from the
 evidence, as required by Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickin-
 son and Co., 649 F.3d 1276, 1290 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (en banc),
 was that either Ikan or its attorney had specifically in-
 tended to deceive the PTO with the STATEMENT in the
 petition to revive the application in 2017. Inequitable Con-
 duct Opinion at 11–12.

     2The district court initially issued findings of fact and
 conclusions of law after its bench trial. Freshub, Inc. v.
 Amazon.com, Inc., No. 21-cv-511, 2021 WL 8945738, (W.D.
 Tex. Jul. 30, 2021); J.A. 15–24. It later vacated that order,
 Freshub, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 21-cv-511 (W.D.
 Tex. Aug. 9, 2021), ECF No. 274; J.A. 39, and instead
 granted Freshub’s motion for judgment on partial findings,
 using much of the language that appeared in the vacated
 order. Inequitable Conduct Opinion at 1.
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 FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.                            9

                               II
      We review denials of motions for judgment as a matter
 of law and for a new trial under regional circuit law. Ray-
 theon Co. v. Indigo Systems Corp., 895 F.3d 1333, 1338
 (Fed. Cir. 2018). Here, under Fifth Circuit law, we review
 the judgment as a matter of law under the de novo stand-
 ard, here asking if the underlying jury findings were sup-
 ported by substantial evidence, see Bear Ranch, L.L.C. v.
 Heartbrand Beef, Inc., 885 F.3d 794, 801 (5th Cir. 2018),
 and we review the denial of the motion for a new trial for
 abuse of discretion, Encompass Office Solutions, Inc. v.
 Louisiana Health Service & Indemnity Co., 919 F.3d 266,
 273 (5th Cir. 2019).
                               A
      In arguing for judgment as a matter of law, Freshub
 focuses on the three claim limitations whose coverage of
 the accused systems it says Amazon disputed at trial (for
 the first two) or after trial (for the third): (1) the require-
 ment that, upon receiving spoken words and translating
 them to text, the system “identify an item corresponding to
 the text” and “add the identified item to a list,” ’153 patent,
 col. 15, lines 1–10; (2) the requirement that, upon receiving
 a “verbal order,” the system create and transmit a “digit-
 ized order,” id., col. 14, lines 58–64; and (3) the requirement
 that the claimed “voice processing system” comprise “the
 computer system . . . comprising . . . a second computer”
 with a “non-transitory memory,” id., col. 14, line 46,
 through col. 15, line 1. Freshub argues that substantial
 evidence does not support a finding adverse to it with re-
 spect to any of those limitations. We agree with Amazon,
 however, that substantial evidence supports a finding of
 noninfringement because of the first limitation. That con-
 clusion suffices to uphold the jury verdict; we need not ad-
 dress the other two limitations.
     The claim limitation comes to us without a claim con-
 struction and without any argument from Freshub that
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 there should have been a claim construction. See J.A. 4487,
 4573. For example, there is no claim construction of “item.”
 Nor is there a claim construction indicating that a system
 comes within the claim as long as the actions taken upon
 execution of the system instructions even sometimes
 amount to performance of the claim-required operations.
 Moreover, Freshub’s argument is only that the jury had to
 find literal infringement; it presents to us no argument
 about infringement under the doctrine of equivalents. The
 substantial-evidence question is whether the jury could
 reasonably have found the claim limitation not to be met,
 considering the facts and the unconstrued limitation. See
 Avid Technology, Inc. v. Harmonic, Inc., 812 F.3d 1040,
 1048–49 (Fed. Cir. 2016); Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Mustek
 Systems, Inc., 340 F.3d 1314, 1320–21 (Fed. Cir. 2003).
     The determinative issue concerns the requirement that
 the system “identify an item.” Freshub contends that the
 shopping-list feature of Amazon’s accused products, when
 used, sometimes ends up adding “items” to shopping lists
 because it translates user speech to text (“add bananas to
 my shopping list”), extracts a keyword (“bananas”), and ap-
 pends the word “bananas” to the user’s shopping list, re-
 sulting in a new “item” on the list. See Freshub’s Opening
 Br. at 33–39. But there was evidence from which the jury
 could reasonably find the claim limitation, when given its
 ordinary meaning in the context of the patent, not to be met
 by the instructions for Amazon’s shopping-list feature.
      Amazon’s expert testified that the Alexa shopping-list
 feature was programmed to add words to the list whether
 or not there exists a purchasable product corresponding to
 the text based on the user’s words. J.A. 1236–37. That
 expert and a knowledgeable fact witness testified that, af-
 ter “translat[ing] at least a portion of the order to digitized
 text,” ’153 patent, col. 15, lines 6–7, the shopping-list fea-
 ture does not engage in any searching or matching before
 adding the translated text to the relevant list. J.A. 1091–
 93, 1235–37. Thus, there was evidence that Alexa would
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 FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.                            11

 add “sad” or “unicorns in a can” to a shopping list when the
 user spoke such words. J.A. 1063, 1235–36. Amazon notes
 that, in its view, a distinct (“shopping cart”) feature of
 Alexa does undertake the additional, explicit step of “iden-
 tifying an item” that corresponds to the text. Amazon’s Re-
 sponse Br. at 14 & n.3, 29. But Freshub did not accuse the
 shopping-cart feature as a basis for alleging infringement
 of the asserted ’153 patent claims, and the accused shop-
 ping-list feature is different.
      The jury could reasonably rely on that evidence to find
 noninfringement. One reasonable understanding of the
 “identify an item” claim language, in the context of the pa-
 tent, is that it refers to a specific, purchasable item. The
 claim specifies adding an “item corresponding to the text,”
 not the text itself, to the list. ’153 patent, col. 15, lines 8–
 10. The claim requires an intermediate action, between the
 system’s generating text and the system’s adding an “item”
 to a list, and that requirement is reasonably understood to
 demand a choice from a known set of options—an under-
 standing supported by the focus on “stored items” in the
 Abstract and Summary of the Invention. ’153 patent, Ab-
 stract; id., col. 1, lines 35–44. With no claim construction
 narrowing the meaning of the language, the jury was free
 to find that the shopping-list feature, unlike the shopping-
 cart feature, does not “identify an item corresponding to the
 text” and therefore does not come within the asserted
 claims of the ’153 patent.
      This conclusion suffices to reject Freshub’s argument
 for judgment as a matter of law. We do not reach Freshub’s
 arguments about other claim limitations.
                                B
     Regarding the district court’s denial of its motion for a
 new trial, Freshub primarily argues that the district court
 should have granted a new trial because Amazon invoked
 the filing dates of the asserted patents in a prejudicial
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 12                          FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

 manner. Freshub’s Opening Br. at 44–54. 3 Freshub had
 argued in a motion in limine that Amazon would, at trial,
 use the dates to suggest that Freshub had filed the appli-
 cations for the asserted patents specifically to target Alexa
 unfairly, J.A. 14404–06, but the court denied the motion,
 J.A. 4. Freshub now argues that Amazon did just that at
 trial, and that the district court therefore abused its discre-
 tion in denying the motion in limine and in denying a new
 trial.
     Freshub has shown no abuse of discretion in denying a
 new trial on this ground. Freshub failed to object properly
 to the mention of the filing dates, as required in this con-
 text by Fifth Circuit law. See C. P. Interests, Inc. v. Cali-
 fornia Pools, Inc., 238 F.3d 690, 701 (5th Cir. 2001) (holding
 that a party’s motion in limine was insufficient to preserve
 the issue of admission of evidence for appeal when the
 party did not object to the evidence at trial) (citing Wilson
 v. Waggener, 837 F.2d 220, 222 (5th Cir. 1988)). Freshub
 has pointed to no objection at trial to the use of the filing
 dates. See Freshub’s Reply Br. at 36 (citing objections only
 to Amazon’s remarks about Ikan’s abandonment of the an-
 cestor patent application). Freshub also has not shown
 that, at the pretrial stage, the filing dates could not reason-
 ably have been deemed to meet the threshold standard of
 relevance under Federal Rule of Evidence 401—e.g., for ar-
 guing the inadequacy of the written description and for de-
 fending against Freshub’s allegations of willful

      3 Freshub presents a one-paragraph argument for a
 new trial on the ground that the verdict was against the
 great weight of the evidence. Freshub Opening Br. at 47.
 The paragraph includes no discussion of evidence. Nothing
 in the paragraph warrants any discussion separate from
 the evidentiary discussion supra and the discussion in this
 section of Freshub’s new-trial argument concerning preju-
 dicial evidence or statements at trial.
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 FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.                         13

 infringement—or, even, the standard of Federal Rule of Ev-
 idence 403 focused on comparing probative value against
 prejudice. The pretrial ruling did not foreclose considera-
 tion at trial of whether uses actually being made of the in-
 formation were running afoul of the evidentiary standards.
 But the just-cited Fifth Circuit authority indicates that it
 is broadly up to the litigant seeing prejudice to object in a
 timely fashion to identify such uses, so they may be evalu-
 ated in the context of the unfolding evidence and argument,
 and prevented or corrected. Freshub, which made no such
 objection, has not shown an abuse of discretion.
     Freshub also briefly argues that Amazon made preju-
 dicial statements at trial by referring to the United States
 Constitution and making “us versus them” arguments that
 appeal to “community conscience,” necessitating a new
 trial. Freshub’s Opening Br. at 54–58. Freshub’s charge
 that Amazon invoked a foreign-v.-domestic (or other
 grossly improper) theme was the primary basis for
 Freshub’s new-trial motion in the district court, which re-
 jected the contention because it was unsupported by any
 concrete examples of the asserted misconduct and (relat-
 edly) Freshub never objected on this ground at trial. See
 Post-Trial Opinion, 576 F. Supp. 3d at 465–67; J.A. 17659–
 60 (colloquy with Freshub counsel). We see no abuse of dis-
 cretion in the district court’s conclusion on this point. And
 we draw the same conclusion about Freshub’s criticism of
 some remarks by Amazon’s counsel simply about the pur-
 pose of the patent system, which we do not read as so dis-
 tinctly asking the jury to make policy judgments outside its
 legitimate role (in the face of unchallenged jury instruc-
 tions) that a new trial is required.
     We conclude that the district court did not abuse its
 discretion in denying a new trial.
                              III
      In its cross-appeal, Amazon seeks reversal of the dis-
 trict court’s rejection of its inequitable-conduct defense.
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 14                         FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

 Specifically, Amazon argues that the district court clearly
 erred in its factual findings regarding the statement made
 to the PTO in 2017 by Ikan’s counsel—who was Ikan’s pros-
 ecuting attorney from the 2011–12 events at issue through
 the 2017 events at issue—in order to obtain revival of the
 ’291 application, from which the three patents asserted in
 this case descend. We conclude that Amazon has not
 shown reversible error.
     “To prevail on the defense of inequitable conduct, the
 accused infringer must prove that the applicant misrepre-
 sented or omitted material information with the specific in-
 tent to deceive the PTO.” Therasense, 649 F.3d at 1287.
 The proof must be by clear and convincing evidence. Id.
 Here, the assertedly false and material statement was the
 denial by Ikan’s counsel that “Ikan abandoned the ’291 ap-
 plication intentionally” during the 2012–17 non-response
 period. Amazon’s Response Br. at 55. And for the decep-
 tive-intent issue, Amazon focuses entirely on the intent of
 Ikan’s counsel, which it then attributes to Ikan, rather
 than on any intent on Ikan’s part separate from that of its
 counsel. Id. at 58–63. When reviewing an inequitable-con-
 duct ruling, we “review the underlying factual determina-
 tions of materiality and intent for clear error, and we
 review the ultimate decision as to inequitable conduct for
 an abuse of discretion.” American Calcar, Inc. v. American
 Honda Motor Co., 651 F.3d 1318, 1334 (Fed. Cir. 2011).
      Here, the district court applied the proper legal stand-
 ards. The district court found, and it is not disputed, that
 the 2017 Ikan statement was material to the PTO’s revival
 of the application and, hence, to the issuance of the three
 patents at issue here. The district court also found, how-
 ever, that Amazon did not prove, by clear and convincing
 evidence, that the statement was a misrepresentation
 made with the required deceptive intent. Inequitable Con-
 duct Opinion at 9–12. We review that finding for clear er-
 ror, which we may deem present only if we have a “definite
 and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed” by
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 FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.                            15

 the district court in finding Amazon’s failure of proof. In-
 wood Laboratories, Inc. v. Ives Laboratories, Inc., 456 U.S.
 844, 855 (1982) (internal quotation marks omitted); see
 Blue Gentian, LLC v. Tristar Products, Inc., 70 F.4th 1351,
 1362–1363 (Fed. Cir. 2023); Nilssen v. Osram Sylvania,
 Inc., 504 F.3d 1223, 1229 (Fed. Cir. 2007).
      It suffices for decision in this matter to focus on the re-
 quirement of deceptive intent on counsel’s part in making
 the 2017 statement. We need not explore the standards for
 when, as a matter of law, counsel’s intent is attributable to
 the client. We cannot disturb the district court’s rejection
 of the inequitable-conduct defense unless we have the def-
 inite and firm conviction that the evidence required the dis-
 trict court to find that Amazon proved, clearly and
 convincingly, that the “single most reasonable inference”
 from the record, Therasense, 649 F.3d at 1290, was that
 Ikan’s counsel, when making his 2017 statement to the
 PTO, in fact believed that Ikan had intentionally aban-
 doned the ’291 application for the 2012–17 period of non-
 response to the PTO. We do not so conclude.
     The subject of the belief at issue in 2017 was Ikan’s in-
 tent from 2012 through the end of the period of non-re-
 sponse in 2017, so the evidence regarding Ikan’s intent for
 that period is important to the ultimate ruling on the de-
 ceptive-intent issue. For various reasons, including the
 passage of time and the limited testimonial and documen-
 tary evidence available—the latter due in part to invoca-
 tions of attorney-client privilege not challenged on
 appeal—the record of what actually occurred at relevant
 times was thin. On that record, the district court found
 that Amazon did not clearly and convincingly prove Ikan’s
 intentional abandonment. Inequitable Conduct Opinion at
 9–10. We need not rule on the correctness of that finding.
 We consider the record for the different but obviously re-
 lated question of what Ikan’s counsel believed in 2017
 about whether Ikan intentionally abandoned the ’291 ap-
 plication.
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 16                         FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

      Counsel’s statement to the PTO was, in substance, that
 the abandonment was not intentional on Ikan’s part, an as-
 sertion that the court could properly understand to have
 been reaffirmed, and not at all disclaimed, when counsel
 was examined by Amazon in a deposition for this litigation.
 See, e.g., J.A. 16999–17000. That statement itself can
 weigh in the evidentiary calculus even when it is not
 backed up affirmatively with a more granular and concrete
 account of how the five-year non-response to the PTO oc-
 curred—an account that might detail, for example,
 whether communications from counsel in 2012 failed to
 reach or inform the relevant decisionmaker at Ikan and
 whether years of inattention to this particular matter en-
 sued because the attention of the company and counsel was
 elsewhere. Of course, the absence of such an account, due
 to unavailability of witnesses or invocations of attorney-cli-
 ent privilege or other reasons, might well lead a factfinder
 to find false, or even knowingly false, the assertion that the
 abandonment was unintentional on Ikan’s part. But that
 hardly means that the absence of such an account always
 compels such a finding.
     Amazon’s arguments for drawing the necessary ad-
 verse inferences leave gaps. Amazon points to deposition
 testimony from Ikan’s counsel that he was aware of the
 PTO-sent notices in 2011–12, including the January 2012
 Notice of Abandonment, and that it was his typical practice
 to communicate such developments to clients. J.A. 16990,
 17000. That testimony need not be taken to establish that
 the relevant Ikan decisionmaker received and understood
 the communications and knowingly authorized the aban-
 donment—or that Ikan’s counsel knew that the relevant
 decisionmaker had done so. See Inequitable Conduct Opin-
 ion at 12 (finding that the Ikan principal “was not included
 in the 2012 communications between [counsel] and Ikan
 personnel [other inventors] after the PTO’s notice of aban-
 donment”); id. at 5 (identifying Ikan principal); J.A. 16994,
 16996. Amazon also notes that, in December 2012, the
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 FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.                         17

 Ikan principal signed an assignment agreement, prepared
 by the prosecuting attorney, that lists the ’291 application
 as “Inactive/Abandoned/Expired.” J.A. 17070–72. But the
 ’291 application was just one of several patent interests
 listed in a document merely making a general assignment
 from one Ikan entity to another, with no apparent decision
 to be made about the PTO status of the ’291 application,
 and even the triple-alternative category does not declare
 that application abandoned. Amazon further points to sev-
 eral entries in a privilege log indicating that the prosecut-
 ing attorney communicated with Ikan regarding the ’291
 application immediately after the final office action to
 which Ikan did not respond. 4 J.A. 16991–92, 17020–21.
 But those entries do not say that the key Ikan principal
 received the communications.
     The evidence clearly shows that Ikan’s counsel knew
 that the application had been abandoned, as he testified,
 J.A. 17000. But whether he made his 2017 statement with
 deceptive intent depends on what he believed about the
 subject of his statement, namely, the intent behind the
 abandonment. And as to the latter, he testified that “[t]he
 intent does not go to my intent. It goes to intent of the
 applicant.” J.A. 16999. The district court could find that
 counsel genuinely so believed, whether or not the belief was
 legally correct, and that counsel did not think that Ikan
 had the intent to abandon during the 2012–17 non-re-
 sponse period. Inequitable Conduct Opinion at 10–12.
 That finding was not clearly erroneous, in light of the facts
 we have already recited. The court could therefore reason-
 ably hold deceptive intent not proven under the governing
 legal standard.

     4  On appeal, Amazon does not challenge the district
 court’s finding that privilege was not waived as to the doc-
 uments to which those privilege-log entries refer.
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 18                          FRESHUB, INC. v. AMAZON.COM, INC.

      Accordingly, we hold that Amazon has not shown re-
 versible error in the district court’s rejection of the defense
 of inequitable conduct.
                               IV
     We have considered Freshub’s and Amazon’s other ar-
 guments, and we find them unpersuasive. For the forego-
 ing reasons, we affirm the district court’s denial of
 judgment as a matter of law, denial of Freshub’s motion for
 new trial, and grant of judgment on partial findings of no
 inequitable conduct.
      The parties shall bear their own costs.
                         AFFIRMED