Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Ltd. v. Netflix, Inc.

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
DecidedFebruary 27, 2025
Docket23-1815
StatusUnpublished

This text of Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Ltd. v. Netflix, Inc. (Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Ltd. v. Netflix, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Ltd. v. Netflix, Inc., (Fed. Cir. 2025).

Opinion

Case: 23-1815 Document: 39 Page: 1 Filed: 02/27/2025

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL SALES PTE. LIMITED, Appellant

v.

NETFLIX, INC., Appellee ______________________

2023-1815 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2021- 01293. ______________________

Decided: February 27, 2025 ______________________

DAN YOUNG, Quarles & Brady LLP, Highlands Ranch, CO, argued for appellant. Also represented by KENT DALLOW, MATTHEW CHRISTIAN HOLOHAN.

HARPER BATTS, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton LLP, Menlo Park, CA, argued for appellee. Also repre- sented by JEFFREY LIANG, CHRISTOPHER SCOTT PONDER. ______________________

Before TARANTO, STOLL, and STARK, Circuit Judges. Case: 23-1815 Document: 39 Page: 2 Filed: 02/27/2025

TARANTO, Circuit Judge. Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Limited is the owner of U.S. Patent No. 9,402,098, titled “Fast Chan- nel Change.” Netflix, Inc. successfully petitioned the Pa- tent and Trademark Office (PTO) to institute an inter partes review of claims 1–5 and 7 of the ’098 patent, and the PTO’s Patent Trial and Appeal Board, upon conducting the review, concluded that all challenged claims were un- patentable, under 35 U.S.C. § 103, for obviousness. J.A. 1– 69. Avago appeals, challenging certain factual findings that underlie the Board’s conclusion of obviousness. We conclude that the challenged findings are supported by substantial evidence. We therefore affirm. I A Avago’s patent addresses the problem in “digital video systems” of a “latency time” (delay) between a user’s re- quest for video information and the system’s presentation of the requested video information to the user. ’098 patent, col. 1, lines 15–18. Causes of this latency include “request processing delays, information communication delays and information processing delays.” Id., col. 1, lines 26–30. To reduce latency time, the patent proposes (in one embodi- ment) a method in which a “video transmission system” sends “a first portion” of the requested video information to a “video receiver” at a rate that is “faster than a typical steady-state transmission rate.” Id., col. 1, lines 41–43, 56– 61. Representative claims 1 and 7 state as follows (with markings used by the Board and parties in brackets): 1. A method, comprising: [1a] receiving, by a video transmission system hav- ing one or more processors, a request for a unit of video information from a remote video receiver; Case: 23-1815 Document: 39 Page: 3 Filed: 02/27/2025

AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL SALES PTE. LTD. v. 3 NETFLIX, INC.

[1b] determining an initial transmission rate for the unit of video information using a real- time determination of available communica- tion bandwidth between the video transmis- sion system and the remote video receiver and a first steady-state transmission rate for the unit of video information, the initial transmission rate being higher than the first steady-state transmis- sion rate; [1c] for a first time period after receiving the request, transmitting, by the video transmis- sion system, a first portion of the unit of video information to the remote video receiver at the initial transmission rate, [1d] wherein in re- sponse to a change in the available communication bandwidth between the video transmission system and the remote video receiver during the first time period, transmitting a remainder of the first por- tion of the unit of video information to the remote video receiver at a second transmission rate for a remainder of the first time period, the second transmission rate being determined using the change in the available communication band- width and being different from the initial transmission rate and the first steady-state transmission rate; and [1e] for a second time period after the first time pe- riod, transmitting, by the video transmission sys- tem, a second portion of the unit of video information to the remote video receiver at the first steady-state transmission rate. ... 7. The method of claim 1, further comprising: determining the first time period using a pre- determined latency goal; and Case: 23-1815 Document: 39 Page: 4 Filed: 02/27/2025

determining the initial transmission rate for the unit of video information further using the deter- mined first time period and an amount of video data to transmit. Id., col. 19, lines 6–62 (emphases added). B The main prior-art reference invoked against all the challenged claims is U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2004/0128396, titled “Adaptable Accelerated Content Streaming” and referred to as “Patrick” (the name of the lead inventor) by the parties and Board. J.A. 756–68. Pat- rick describes a problem that affects streaming media con- tent over a network to a client device having a buffer: The client must “wait for the buffer to be initially filled before playback begins, thereby delaying the starting of the play- back.” J.A. 761 ¶ 3. Patrick describes, among other things, the following solution: “When a server device is initially streaming media content to a client device, the streaming is performed at an accelerated rate so that the buffer on the client device can be filled quicker. When this initial buffer fill is finished, the rate of streaming is reduced to a steady state rate.” J.A. 761 ¶ 12. Figure 3 of Patrick “illustrat[es] an exemplary process for accelerated streaming”: Case: 23-1815 Document: 39 Page: 5 Filed: 02/27/2025

AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL SALES PTE. LTD. v. 5 NETFLIX, INC.

J.A. 759 fig.3, 761 ¶ 10. Most relevant to the dispute now before us are steps 206 (“Determine Amount of the Total Bandwidth Currently Available to be Used for Accelerated Streaming . . .”) and 208 (“Allow the Determined Amount of Bandwidth to be Used to Stream the Media Content . . . at an Accelerated Rate”). J.A. 759 fig.3. A second prior-art reference is invoked by Netflix in challenging claim 7—U.S. Patent No. 6,801,964, titled “Methods and Systems to Fast Fill Media Players” and re- ferred to as “Mahdavi” (the name of the inventor). J.A. 821–32. Figure 2 “shows a flowchart representing . . . method 200 of fast filling a media player”: Case: 23-1815 Document: 39 Page: 6 Filed: 02/27/2025

J.A. 823 (Figure 2), 830 (col. 6, lines 8–9). “[I]n steps 202 and 204, latency associated with a startup of a media player/stream and a bandwidth associated with receiving media data into the media player’s buffer are identified.” J.A. 830 (col. 6, lines 9–13). “Next, the identified band- width is increased by a factor, in step 220.” J.A. 830 (col. 6, lines 36–37) (emphasis added). This factor “can be con- trolled,” including by “determining the desired initial min- imum latency required by the media player or data communication protocol . . . as depicted in step 226.” J.A. 830 (col. 6, lines 58–65) (emphasis added). “Next, the factor Case: 23-1815 Document: 39 Page: 7 Filed: 02/27/2025

AVAGO TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL SALES PTE. LTD. v. 7 NETFLIX, INC.

is readily resolved by dividing the minimum initial latency time represented in seconds or milliseconds by the media player’s identified latency in like time units.” J.A. 830–31 (col. 6, line 65, through col. 7, line 2) (emphases added). Fi- nally, “the media data are transferred at an increased . . . bandwidth” in step 240 and the media player begins to play the media data in step 250. J.A. 831 (col. 7, lines 12–13, 19–23). C In August 2021, Netflix petitioned the PTO for an inter partes review, under 35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319

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Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Ltd. v. Netflix, Inc., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/avago-technologies-international-sales-pte-ltd-v-netflix-inc-cafc-2025.