EMC Corp. v. Pure Storage, Inc.

77 F. Supp. 3d 402, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2395, 2015 WL 136333
CourtDistrict Court, D. Delaware
DecidedJanuary 9, 2015
DocketCivil Action No. 13-1985
StatusPublished

This text of 77 F. Supp. 3d 402 (EMC Corp. v. Pure Storage, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Delaware primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
EMC Corp. v. Pure Storage, Inc., 77 F. Supp. 3d 402, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2395, 2015 WL 136333 (D. Del. 2015).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ANDREWS, U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE:

Before this Court is the issue of claim construction of disputed terms found in five U.S. Patents, 6,904,556 (“the ’556 patent”), 6,915,475 (“the ’475 patent”), 7,373,-464 (“the ’464 patent”), 7,434,015 (“the ’015 patent”), and 8,375,187 (“the ’187 patent”).

I. BACKGROUND

Plaintiffs assert that Defendant infringes several of their patents in the field of data storage systems. (D.I. 92 at p. 3). The Court has considered the parties’ claim construction briefing (D.I.92, 93, 95) and held a Markman hearing on December 16, 2014.1

[405]*405II. LEGAL STANDARD

“It is a bedrock principle of patent law that the claims of a patent define the invention to which the patentee is entitled the right to exclude.” Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312 (Fed.Cir.2005) (en banc) (internal quotation marks omitted). “ ‘[T]here is no magic formula or catechism for conducting claim construction.’ Instead, the court is free to attach the appropriate weight to appropriate sources ‘in light of the statutes and policies that inform patent law.’ ” Soft-View LLC v. Apple Inc., 2013 WL 4758195, at *1 (D.Del. Sept. 4, 2013) (quoting Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1324). When construing patent claims, a matter of law, a court considers the literal language of the claim, the patent specification, and the prosecution history. Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F.3d 967, 977-80 (Fed.Cir.1995) (en banc), aff'd, 517 U.S. 370, 116 S.Ct. 1384, 134 L.Ed.2d 577 (1996). Of these sources, “the specification is always highly relevant to the claim construction analysis. Usually, it is dispositive; it is the single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term.” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1315 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

“[T]he words of a claim are generally given their ordinary and customary meaning.... [Which is] the meaning that the term would have to a person of ordinary skill in the art in question at the time of the invention, i.e., as of the effective filing date of the patent application.” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1312-13 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). “[T]he ordinary meaning of a claim term is its meaning to [an] ordinary artisan after reading the entire patent.” Id. at 1321 (internal quotation marks omitted). “In some cases, the ordinary meaning of claim language as understood by a person of skill in the art may be readily apparent even to lay judges, and claim construction in such cases involves little more than the application of the widely accepted meaning of commonly understood words.” Id. at 1314 (internal citations omitted).

A court may consider extrinsic evidence, which “consists of all evidence external to the patent and prosecution history, including expert and inventor testimony, dictionaries, and learned treatises,” in order to assist the court in understanding the underlying technology, the meaning of terms to one skilled in the art, and how the invention works. Id. at 1317-19 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). Extrinsic evidence, however, is less reliable and less useful in claim construction than the patent and its prosecution history. Id.

“A claim construction is persuasive, not because it follows a certain rule, but because it defines terms in the context of the whole patent.” Renishaw PLC v. Marposs Societa’ per Azioni, 158 F.3d 1243, 1250 (Fed.Cir.1998). It follows that “a claim interpretation that would exclude the inventor’s device is rarely the correct interpretation.” Osram GmbH v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 505 F.3d 1351, 1358 (Fed.Cir.2007) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

III. CONSTRUCTION OF DISPUTED TERMS

A. The ’464 and ’015 Patents

Claim 1 of the ’464 patent is representative:

A method for storing data comprising:
receiving a data stream comprising a plurality of data segments wherein each data segment is associated with an identifier;
determining using a subset of identifiers that are stored in a low latency memory whether a data segment has been previously stored; and [406]*406returning the identifier for the data segment in the event the data segment is determined to have been stored previously.

(’464 patent, claim l).2

Claim 1 of the ’015 patent is representative:

A method for storing data comprising: receiving a data stream comprising a plurality of data segments; assigning an identifier to one of the plurality of data segments; and determining whether one of the plurality of data segments has been stored previously using a summary, wherein the summary is a space efficient, probabilistic summary of segment information.

(’015 patent, claim 1).

1. “determine” / “determined” / “determining” (’464 patent — claims 1, 19, 32; ’015 patent — claims 1,15,16).

a.- Plaintiffs’ proposed construction: Decide/decided/deciding, either conclusively or inconclusively,

b. Defendant’s proposed construction: Conclusively decide/decided/deciding.

c. Court’s construction: Decide/decided/deciding, either conclusively or inconclusively.

The Court agrees with Plaintiffs that “determine” must be construed as being decided either conclusively or inconclusively. Both patent specifications explicitly refer to positive, or conclusive determinations, implying that a determination can be either conclusive or inconclusive. See, e.g., ’464 patent at 5:46-67 (“The cache can positively (that is, conclusively) determine that the segment ... has previously been stored, because it is found in the cache.” Id. at 5:46-49). At the hearing, both parties agreed that positive and positively mean conclusive and conclusively. (D.I. 108 at 25-26). The patent claims also support the idea that determining can be either Conclusive or inconclusive. Dependent claim 2, for example, provides that “the determination [from claim 1] can positively confirm that the data' segment has been previously stored, but cannot positively confirm that the data segment has not been previously stored.” (’464 patent at 10:15-18). In response to this, Defendant has asserted that the specification “emphasizes” conclusive determinations and that the specification does not disclose any examples of inconclusive determinations.- (D.I. 92 at p. 12). Instead, according to Defendant, the specification “only discloses situations where no determination can be made.” (Id.).

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
77 F. Supp. 3d 402, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 2395, 2015 WL 136333, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/emc-corp-v-pure-storage-inc-ded-2015.