21
Jul
By Eric Schweibenz
On July 19, 2010, the ITC issued the public version of its opinion affirming ALJ E. James Gildea’s April 19, 2010 Initial Determination (“ID”) of no violation of Section 337 in Certain Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp (“CCFL”) Inverter Circuits and Products Containing the Same (Inv. No. 337-TA-666).  Although the ITC affirmed ALJ Gildea’s overall determination of no violation, it did so on modified grounds, reversing the ALJ’s determination that two of Respondent Microsemi Corporation’s (“Microsemi”) products infringe the patent-in-suit and the ALJ’s determination that Complainants O2 Micro International Ltd. and O2 Micro Inc. (collectively, “O2 Micro”) did not satisfy the domestic industry requirement.

By way of background, the Respondents in this investigation are Monolithic Power Systems Inc. (“MPS”), ASUSTek Computer Inc. and ASUS Computer International America (collectively, “ASUS”), and Microsemi.  On April 19, 2010, ALJ Gildea issued the ID finding no violation of Section 337.  In particular, ALJ Gildea determined, inter alia, that Microsemi’s LX1691 and LX1693 products infringe the asserted claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,417,382 (the ‘382 patent), but that O2 Micro had not satisfied the technical prong of the domestic industry requirement with respect to the ‘382 patent.  Regarding Respondents MPS and ASUS, ALJ Gildea determined that these Respondents’ products did not infringe the asserted claims of the ‘382 patent.  See our May 24, 2010 post for more details.

On June 18, 2010, the ITC determined to review the ID in-part.  On review, the Commission affirmed the ALJ’s determination of no violation of Section 337, but reversed (1) the ALJ’s determinations that the LX1691 and LX1693 Microsemi products infringe the asserted claims of the ‘382 patent, and (2) the ALJ’s determination that O2 Micro had not satisfied the domestic industry requirement.  See our June 21, 2010 post for more details.

Infringement

In the Opinion, the ITC adopted ALJ Gildea’s claim constructions of both the “timer circuit” and “protection circuit” elements contained in the asserted claims of the ‘382 patent.  In applying the claim construction, however, the ITC determined that neither the LX1961 nor the LX1963 products met the “predetermined duration” limitation included in the “timer circuit” and “protection circuit” elements.  Specifically with regard to LX1961, the ITC determined that because the duration of the time-out period depended on the fault, which was unpredictable, the products did not meet the “predetermined duration” limitation.  With regard to LX1963, the ITC noted that the duration of the time-out period for this product could not be determined before the fault occurred because it depended on the magnitude of the fault, which was unpredictable.  Thus, likewise, the LX1963 product did not meet the “predetermined duration” limitation.  The ITC added that the LX1963 product also did not meet the “first voltage signal exceeds a predetermined threshold for said predetermined duration” limitation.  Accordingly, the ITC reversed ALJ Gildea’s determination of infringement by the LX1961 and LX1963 products.

Domestic Industry

With respect to the technical prong of the domestic industry requirement, the ITC also reversed ALJ Gildea’s determination.  ALJ Gildea determined that O2 Micro’s products did not practice the claims of the ‘382 patent.  According to the Opinion, the ALJ did so based in part on witness testimony.  The ITC stated that ALJ Gildea’s reliance on the “doubt” created by the witness testimony suggested that he applied a more demanding burden of proof than was warranted.  In this regard, the ITC noted that O2 Micro was not required to prove beyond doubt that its domestic products met the claim limitations.  Rather, the burden of proof for the existence of domestic industry is the preponderance of the evidence standard.