Federal Circuit Patent Watch: "The" Computer Means The Same Computer

• Jurisdiction: United States,Federal
• Law Firm: WilmerHale
• Subject Matter: Intellectual Property, Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Patent, Trials & Appeals & Compensation
• Author: Mr Arthur Coviello, Omar Khan and Haixia Lin
• Published date: 19 October 2023

Precedential and Key Federal Circuit Opinions

1. FINJAN LLC V. SONICWALL, INC [OPINION] (22-1048, 10/13/2023) (Reyna, Bryson, and Cunningham)

Cunningham, J. The Court vacated the district court's judgment of invalidity and remanded for further proceedings and affirmed "the district court's grant of summary judgment of noninfringement and the district court's decision to exclude Finjan's expert analysis." The at-issue patents "relate to ways to protect network-connectable devices from undesirable downloadable operations" and "relate[] to adaptive, rule-based content scanners that scan mobile content for exploits to facilitate network security." The Court explained that "Finjan raise[d] four arguments." "First, Finjan challenges the district court's grant of judgment of invalidity of the claims [of three] of the [Downloadable P]atents based on collateral estoppel." The Court explained that it "cannot uphold applying collateral estoppel based on a vacated judgment." "Second, Finjan seeks to reverse the district court's judgment of noninfringement as to the asserted claims of the Downloadable Patents, contending that receiving packets that contain a downloadable or portions thereof constitutes receiving a downloadable." The Court explained that "the district court's judgment of noninfringement flows from the parties' agreed-upon [claim] construction." It emphasized that "[t]he asserted claims use 'Downloadable' in different ways[,] but "the parties adopted a single construction of 'Downloadable' for each of these claims[.] As a result, the Court explained that it "do[es] not permit parties on appeal to raise claim construction arguments challenging a stipulated construction." "Third, Finjan challenges the district court's grant of summary judgment of noninfringement as to the ARB Patent, alleging that multiple computers can collectively perform the 'by a computer' or 'by the computer' limitations." The Court "agree[d] with SonicWall" that "Finjan never disputed that its Capture ATP and Gateway products are performed by different computers, challenging only whether the claims required the 'same computer' to perform the claim limitations" and "affirm[ed] the district court's grant of summary judgment of noninfringement as to the asserted claims of the ARB Patent." Finally, "Finjan argue[d] that the district court abused its discretion in striking Finjan's expert apportionment analysis, which purportedly mirrored an apportionment analysis we previously approved...