Applications in Internet Time, LLC v. Salesforce, Inc.

Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit·Decided October 10, 2024·No. 24-1133·Unpublished

Opinion

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

APPLICATIONS IN INTERNET TIME, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

SALESFORCE, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee

2024-1133

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada in No. 3:13-cv-00628-RCJ-CLB, Senior Judge Robert Clive Jones.

-------------------------------------------------

APPLICATIONS IN INTERNET TIME, LLC, Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

SALESFORCE, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee

2024-1685

2 APPLICATIONS IN INTERNET TIME, LLC v. SALESFORCE, INC.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Nevada in No. 3:13-cv-00628-RCJ-CLB, Senior Judge Robert Clive Jones.

Decided: October 10, 2024

MICHAEL DEVINCENZO, King & Wood Mallesons LLP, New York, NY, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by ANDREA PACELLI, CHARLES WIZENFELD; STEVEN C. SEREBOFF, SoCal IP Law Group LLP, Westlake Village, CA.

KEVIN P.B. JOHNSON, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan , LLP, Redwood Shores, CA, argued for defendant-appellee . Also represented by BRIAN C. CANNON, RAY ROBERT ZADO; GAVIN SNYDER, Seattle, WA; SAM STEPHEN STAKE, OGNJEN ZIVOJNOVIC, San Francisco, CA.

Before LOURIE, LINN, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.

LINN, Circuit Judge.

Applications in Internet Time (“AIT”) appeals the grants of summary judgment of non-infringement and invalidity of the asserted claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,356,482 (the “’482 patent”) and 8,484,111 (the “’111 patent ”). See Applications in Internet Time, LLC v. Sallesforce .com, Inc., 691 F. Supp. 3d 1223, 1228, 1230–31 (D. Nev. 2023) (“Summary Judgment Order”). Further, AIT challenges the district court’s construction of “automatically detecting” as requiring the use of intelligent agents. See Applications in Internet Time, LLC v. Salesforce.com, Inc., No. 3:13-CV-00628-RCJ-CLB, 2021 WL 5238767, at *13, (D. Nev. Nov. 9, 2021) (“Markman Order”). AIT also appeals the district court’s conclusion that its case was exceptional under 35 U.S.C. § 285 and the award of nearly

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$6.9 million in attorneys’ fees. See Applications in Internet Time, LLC v. Salesforce, Inc., 3:13-CV-00628-RCJ-CLB, 2024 WL 1199594, at *6 (D. Nev. Mar. 20, 2024) (“Fee Order ”).

For the reasons that follow, we modify the district court’s claim construction of “automatically detecting,” vacate the district court’s grants of summary judgment of non-infringement and invalidity, and reverse its exceptional case determination.

BACKGROUND

In 2013, AIT sued Salesforce in the District of Nevada for patent infringement of the ’482 and ’111 patents. The ’482 and ’111 patents have substantially identical specifications . The asserted patents are directed to methods and systems for automatically detecting changes to business requirements and incorporating such changes into an application . Representative claim 1 of the ’482 patent recites:

1. A system for providing a dynamically generated application having one or more functions and one or more user interface elements; comprising:

a server computer; one or more client computers connected to the server computer over a computer network ; a first layer associated with the server computer containing information about the unique aspects of a particular application; a second layer associated with the server computer containing information about the user interface and functions common to a variety of applications, a particular application being generated based on the data in both the first and second layers;

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a third layer associated with the server computer that retrieves the data in the first and second layers in order to generate the functionality and user interface elements of the application; and a change management layer for automatically detecting changes that affect an application , each client computer further comprising a browser application being executed by each client computer, wherein a user interface and functionality for the particular application is distributed to the browser application and dynamically generated when the client computer connects to the server computer.

’482 patent col. 32 ll. 9–34 (emphases added).

Relevant to this appeal, unasserted claim 8 recites: 8. The system of claim 1, wherein the change management layer further comprises one or more intelligent agents that detect changes that affect an application.

’482 patent col. 32 ll. 59–61 (emphasis added).

In its Markman order, the district court construed “automatically detecting” as requiring the use of one or more intelligent agents, concluding that the specification made clear that intelligent agents were integral to the invention. Markman Order, at *6–7. Additionally, the district court afforded “changes that affect” its plain and ordinary meaning . See id. at *8.

Salesforce moved for summary judgment of non-infringement of all asserted claims. Summary Judgment Order , 691 F. Supp. 3d at 1227. Salesforce also moved for summary judgment of invalidity, contending that the claims were anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 6,249,291

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(“Popp”) and rendered obvious by the combination of Popp with an academic reference (“Amati”). Id. at 1237. AIT filed a motion for summary judgment of no anticipation, contending that Salesforce failed to prove that Popp disclosed an intelligent agent. Id. at 1227, 1242.

The district court granted summary judgment of non-

infringement, reasoning that because AIT’s expert, Mr. Zatkovich, failed to compare the accused products to the specification’s description of intelligent agents, no reasonable jury could find in AIT’s favor. Summary Judgment Order, 691 F. Supp. 3d at 1234–35. The district court also granted summary judgment of invalidity, concluding that the asserted claims were anticipated by Popp and rendered obvious by the Popp–Amati combination. Id. at 1253. Determining that its Markman order ended any reasonable likelihood of AIT prevailing on the merits, the district court held that AIT’s continued litigation after the Markman order made this case exceptional and awarded Salesforce $6,890,328.28 in attorneys’ fees. See Fee Order, at *6. These appeals followed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

ANALYSIS

I. Standard of Review

“Claim construction is ultimately a question of law, decided de novo on review, as are the intrinsic-evidence aspects of a claim-construction analysis.” Intel Corp. v. Qualcomm Inc., 21 F.4th 801, 808 (Fed. Cir. 2021). “To the extent the district court, in construing the claims, makes underlying findings of fact based on extrinsic evidence, we review such findings of fact for clear error.” Williamson v. Citrix Online, LLC, 792 F.3d 1339, 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2015); see also Teva Pharms. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 574 U.S. 318, 321–22 (2015). Claim terms generally carry their ordinary and customary meaning as understood by an ordinarily skilled artisan. Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312–13 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc). “But where the 6 APPLICATIONS IN INTERNET TIME, LLC v. SALESFORCE, INC.

inventor has clearly set forth a different definition of a claim term, or has manifested that the invention does or does not include a particular aspect, that intention is regarded as dispositive.” Techtronic Indus. Co. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 944 F.3d 901, 907 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (internal quotations omitted). Establishing disavowal requires “clear and unequivocal evidence that the claimed invention includes or does not include a particular feature.” Poly-Am., L.P. v. API Indus., Inc., 839 F.3d 1131, 1136 (Fed. Cir. 2016).

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