Largan Precision Co, LTD v. Motorola Mobility, LLC.

CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedMay 7, 2024
Docket4:21-cv-09138
StatusUnknown

This text of Largan Precision Co, LTD v. Motorola Mobility, LLC. (Largan Precision Co, LTD v. Motorola Mobility, LLC.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Largan Precision Co, LTD v. Motorola Mobility, LLC., (N.D. Cal. 2024).

Opinion

1 2 3 4 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 5 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 6 7 LARGAN PRECISION CO., LTD, Case No. 21-cv-09138-JSW

8 Plaintiff, CLAIM CONSTRUCTION ORDER v. 9

10 MOTOROLA MOBILITY LLC., Defendant. 11

12 13 The Court has been presented with a technology tutorial and briefing leading up to a 14 hearing pursuant to Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 517 U.S. 370 (1996). This Order 15 construes the disputed claim terms selected by the parties, which appear in United States Patent 16 No. 8,310,767 (“the ’767 Patent”) and U.S Patent No. 9,784,948 (“the ’948 Patent”) (collectively, 17 the “Asserted Patents”). 18 BACKGROUND 19 Plaintiff Largan Precision Co., Ltd. (“Largan”) filed this suit against Defendant Motorola 20 Mobility LLC (“Motorola”) on November 24, 2021. (Dkt. No. 1.) In the Complaint, Largan 21 asserted infringement of the ’767 Patent, the ’948 Patent, as well as United States Patent Nos. 22 8,514,499, 9,696,519, 10,209,487, and 10,564,397. (Id.) Largan filed an amended complaint on 23 February 23, 2022. (Dkt. No. 36.) Motorola answered the amended complaint on March 9, 2022. 24 (Dkt. No. 45.) Motorola also filed six petitions to the United States Patent Trial and Appeal Board 25 (“PTAB”) for inter partes review (“IPR”) of those patents. (See Dkt. No. 68.) This case was then 26 stayed pending IPR until May 16, 2023, at which point the Court lifted the stay after Largan 27 agreed to narrow its Asserted Claims to claims 16–20 and 22–24 of the ’767 Patent, which ] on IPR. (Dkt. No. 82.) Accordingly, Largan now asserts infringement of claims 16—20 and 22-24 2 || of the ’767 Patent and claim 5 of the ’948 Patent. 3 The Asserted Patents are generally directed to imaging systems which comprise multiple 4 || lens elements. As an example, Fig. 1A of the ’767 Patent shows the cross section of an imaging 5 system comprising six lens elements: 6 180> 160 I 2 7 \ | 4 | ZZ a 8 150> 140 | SO 9 130 \ | a“ \ 1205 | | YD 10 100~. / | HON D/ \ msec \\ “ | >t 2 At lin 4 + 2B LNT 7} 112 Fy □□□ \ 4a 4 iV) [\/ 7 ( ( Yo 122131) FF □□□ ) ft f 132 Jf“) | f\ 4S □□ /is/ / / | 142 152 | J // _|l- / 16 161-c_ 4 162 17 Fig. 1A Z 18 18. 19 |! (767 Patent Fig. 1A.) 20 Industry convention dictates that in depictions such as Fig. 1A, light rays travel from an 21 object being imaged on the left, through the lens elements in the imaging system, to generate an 22 image on a sensor to the right. Accordingly, the left surface of any lens element is described as 23 II the “object side surface” of the element, and the right surface is the “image side surface.” Each 24 |! lens element thus has an object-side surface and an image-side surface. The line passing through 23 |! the center of each lens element (represented in Fig. 1A as 111) is the “optical axis”, and the lens 26 |! elements are symmetrical around the optical axis. The surfaces of lens elements may be many 27 shapes. A flat surface is described as a “planar” surface. A surface that curves inward is described 28

1 as “concave” and a surface that curves outward is “convex.”1 A lens surface may be entirely 2 planar, convex, or concave, or contain portions that are planar, convex, and/or concave. The point 3 at which a portion of the lens changes from being one shape (e.g., planar, convex, or concave) to 4 another is described as an “inflection point.” A “spheric” lens is a lens that can be described as a 5 cross-section of a sphere; conversely, “aspheric” describes lenses that are non-spherical. Lens 6 manufacturers also describe lenses with more specific details, such as radius of curvature, 7 thickness, index of refraction, Abbe number, focal length, aperture stop, and for aspheric surfaces, 8 the aspheric coefficients. (See Dkt. No. 105-4 (“Bentley Decl.”) ¶¶ 21–33; Dkt. No. 106-4 9 (“Barbastathis Decl.”) at 5–6; Dkt. No. 105 (“Largan Br.”) at 3–5; Dkt. No. 106 (“Motorola Br.”) 10 at 2–4.) 11 The ’767 Patent is entitled “Image Capturing Lens Assembly,” and generally relates to 12 imaging lenses with six lens elements. Independent claim 16, upon which all the asserted claims 13 of the ’767 Patent depend, recites: 14 16. An image capturing lens assembly comprising, in order from an object side to an image side: 15 a first lens element with positive refractive power having a convex 16 object-side surface; 17 a second lens element with negative refractive power; 18 a third lens element; 19 a fourth lens element having at least one of an object-side surface and an image-side surface thereof being aspheric; 20 a fifth lens element with positive refractive power having a convex 21 image-side surface, and at least one of an object-side surface and the image-side surface thereof being aspheric; and 22 a sixth lens element with negative refractive power having a concave 23 image-side surface, and at least one inflection point is formed on at least one of an object-side surface and the image-side surface thereof; 24 wherein a focal length of the fifth lens element is f5, a focal length of 25 the sixth lens element is f6, a focal length of the third lens element is 26

27 1 The Court summarizes what the parties agree is the industry convention for these terms. The f3, a focal length of the fourth lens element is f4, and they satisfy the 1 following relation: 2 (|f5|+|f6|)/(|f3|+|f4|)<0.4. 3 (’767 Patent cl. 16.) Claims 17–20 and 22–24 recite systems wherein certain lens elements have 4 varying focal lengths, surface concavity/convexity, and thicknesses. (See id. cls. 17–20, 22–24.) 5 The ’948 Patent is entitled “Imaging Lens System,” and generally relates to imaging lenses 6 with five lens elements. Claims 1 and 4 of the ’948 Patent, upon which asserted claim 5 depends, 7 recites: 8 1. An imaging lens system including, in order from an object side to an image side: 9 a first lens element having a concave image-side surface; 10 a second lens element; 11 a third lens element with negative refractive power having a convex 12 object-side surface and a concave image-side surface, the object-side and image-side surfaces thereof being aspheric; 13 a fourth lens element with positive refractive power having a convex 14 image-side surface; and 15 a fifth lens element with negative refractive power having a convex object-side surface and a concave image-side surface, the object-side 16 and image-side surfaces thereof being aspheric, each of the object- side and image-side surfaces thereof being provided with at least one 17 inflection point; 18 wherein there are a total of five lens elements in the imaging lens system, and a gap exists between every two adjacent lens elements 19 along an optical axis of the imaging lens system. 20 . . . 21 4. The imaging lens system according to claim 1, wherein the first lens element has positive refractive power. 22 (’948 Patent cls. 1, 4.) Claim 5 then recites: “The imaging lens system according to claim 4, 23 wherein the second lens element has negative refractive power.” (Id. cl. 5.) 24 ANALYSIS 25 A. Legal Standard 26 Claim construction is a question of law for the Court. Markman, 517 U.S. at 384. It is a 27 “bedrock principle” of patent law that “the claims of a patent define the invention to which the 1 patentee is entitled the right to exclude.” Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2 2005) (en banc). “The purpose of claim construction is to determine the meaning and scope of the 3 patent claims asserted to be infringed.” O2 Micro Int’l Ltd. v. Beyond Innovation Tech. Co., 521 4 F.3d 1351, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2008).

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Largan Precision Co, LTD v. Motorola Mobility, LLC., Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/largan-precision-co-ltd-v-motorola-mobility-llc-cand-2024.