19
Feb
By John Presper
On February 11, 2014, ALJ Theodore R. Essex issued the public versions of Order Nos. 91, 92 and 93 (dated January 24, January 30 and January 30, 2014, respectively) in Certain Wireless Devices with 3G and/or 4G Capabilities and Components Thereof (Inv. No. 337-TA-868).

According to Order No. 91, Respondents Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. and Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC (collectively, “Samsung”) fied a motion for partial summary determination that Samsung does not infringe U.S. Patent No. 7,502,406 (“the ‘406 patent”).  Subsequent to Samsung’s Motion, in another ITC investigation (Inv. No. 337-TA-800) where Complainants InterDigital Communications, Inc., InterDigital Technology Corporation, IPR Licensing, Inc., and InterDigital Holdings, Inc. (collectively, “InterDigital”) asserted the ‘406 patent, the ITC construed the term “power control bit.”  See our January 3, 2014 post for more details on the ITC’s claim construction.  Based on the ITC’s claim construction in the ‘800 investigation, InterDigital and Samsung filed a joint stipulation under which the parties agreed to terminate the investigation as to the ‘406 patent based on non-infringement.  Accordingly, ALJ Essex found that Samsung is entitled to summary determination of non-infringement of the asserted claims of the ‘406 patent.

According to Order No. 92, Samsung filed a motion for partial summary determination of invalidity for lack of written description for the asserted claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,706,830, 7,190,966 and 7,286,847.  Specifically, Samsung argued that the specifications fail to disclose the “communication channel over which communications are to be established is indicated by the base station” and “indication occurs after the subscriber unit sends a message to establish communications” limitations.  In opposition, InterDigital maintained that its experts identified portions of the specification that support those limitations, and asserted that Samsung mischaracterized one of its expert’s testimony.  In support of InterDigital’s opposition, the Commission Investigative Staff (“OUII”) pointed to specific sections of the specification that allegedly disclosed the claim limitations at issue.  ALJ Essex determined that InterDigital and the OUII presented evidence that raised triable issues of fact regarding the claim limitations at issue, and denied the motion.

According to Order No. 93, Samsung and Respondents ZTE Corporation; ZTE (USA), Inc., Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., Huawei Device USA, Inc., Future Wei Technologies, Inc., Nokia Corporation, and Nokia, Inc. (collectively, “Respondents”) filed a motion for summary determination that InterDigital has not met the technical prong of the domestic industry requirement with respect to U.S. Patent No. 7,941,151 (“the ‘151 patent”).  In particular, Respondents argued that InterDigital failed to present evidence that the source code analyzed by InterDigital’s expert is implemented in the physical devices that InterDigital alleged contains the LTE functionality.  InterDigital countered that “there is no requirement that the article protected by the patent actually be ‘an article of manufacture,’” and that InterDigital in fact provided evidence that the source code analyzed by its expert is implemented in a physical device.  Likewise, the OUII opposed Respondents’ motion, asserting that “a justifiable inference can be drawn that InterDigital’s products practice a claim of the ‘15[1] Patent because it is highly likely that InterDigital’s LTE products contain InterDigital’s LTE source code.”  ALJ Essex determined that there are disputed issues of fact regarding whether InterDigital meets the technical prong of the domestic industry requirement for the ‘151 patent, and denied the motion.