SRI International Inc. v. Internet Security Systems, Inc.

456 F. Supp. 2d 623, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75081, 2006 WL 2949142
CourtDistrict Court, D. Delaware
DecidedOctober 17, 2006
Docket04-1199 SLR
StatusPublished
Cited by7 cases

This text of 456 F. Supp. 2d 623 (SRI International Inc. v. Internet Security Systems, 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
SRI International Inc. v. Internet Security Systems, Inc., 456 F. Supp. 2d 623, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75081, 2006 WL 2949142 (D. Del. 2006).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

SUE L. ROBINSON, Chief Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

Plaintiff SRI International, Inc. (“SRI”) brought suit against defendants Symantec Corporation (“Symantec”) and Internet Security Systems, Inc. 1 (“ISS”) charging infringement of four patents: United States Patent Nos. 6,484,203 (“the ’203 patent”), 6,708,212 (“the ’212 patent”), 6,321,338 (“the ’338 patent”), and 6,711,615 (“the ’615 patent”). 2

Currently before the court is defendants’ motion for summary judgment that *625 each of the four patents in suit is invalid pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 102 and § 103. (D.I.297) Defendants’ invalidity arguments may be summarized as follows:

1. A publication entitled “EMERALD: Event Monitoring Enabling Responses to Anomalous Live Disturbances” (“EMERALD 1997”) anticipates the asserted claims of the ’203, ’212, and ’615 patents pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 102;
2. In the alternative, EMERALD 1997 in combination with a publication entitled “A Method to Detect Intrusive Activity in a Networked Environment” (“Intrusive Activity 1991”) renders the asserted claims of the ’203 and ’615 patents obvious pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 103;
3. A publication entitled “Live Traffic Analysis of TCP/IP Gateways” (“Live Traffic”) anticipates the asserted claims of all of the patents in suit pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 102;
4. In the alternative, Live, Traffic in combination with EMERALD 1997 renders claims 4, 11, 15 and 22 of the ’203 patent, claims 6, 13, 17, and 24 of the ’212 patent, and claims 4, 12, 16, 23, 37, 43, 47, and 53 of the ’615 patent obvious pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 103; and
5. A publication entitled “Architecture Design of a Scalable Intrusion Detection System for the Emerging Network Infrastructure” (referred to as the “JiNao Report”) anticipates the asserted claims of the patents in suit pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 102.

(D.I. 299 at 5-6)

Also before the court are additional motions on overlapping and/or related issues regarding the validity of the patents in suit, specifically: defendants’ motion for summary judgment of invalidity for failure to disclose best mode according to 35 U.S.C. § 112 (D.I.282); and plaintiffs motions for partial summary judgment of no anticipation by the EMERALD 1997 publication (D.I.276), 3 no anticipation based on combinations of additional prior art references which may be asserted by defendants at trial (D.I.279), and that the Live Traffic paper is not a printed publication pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) (D.I.270). Also before the court is defendant ISS’s motion to preclude plaintiff from disputing evidence that the Live Traffic paper qualifies as a § 102(b) printed publication based on plaintiffs conduct during discovery. (D.I.364)

For the following reasons, defendants’ motion for summary judgment of invalidity (D.I.297) is granted.

II. BACKGROUND

The patents in suit relate to the monitoring and surveillance of computer networks for intrusion detection. In particular, the patents in suit teach a computer-automated method of hierarchical event monitoring and analysis within an enterprise network that allows for real-time detection of intruders. Upon detecting any suspicious activity, the network monitors generate reports of such activity. The claims of the ’203 and ’615 patents focus on methods and systems for deploying a hierarchy of network monitors that can generate and receive reports of suspicious network activity.

To detect attacks which do not possess deterministic signatures or to detect previously unknown (new) attacks, the patents in suit disclose the use of statistical detec *626 tion methods on network data. The claims of the ’338 patent are directed to a particular statistical algorithm for detecting suspicious network activity. The claims of the ’212 patent combine both the use of statistical detection methods and a hierarchical architecture of network monitors.

The patents in suit share a common specification and priority date of November 9, 1998. 4 (D.I.301, exs.A-D) The critical date is November 9, 1997 for purposes of 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).

A. The Live Traffic Paper

In 1997, the Internet Society 5 (“ISOC”) announced a conference to be held in March 1998, called the “Symposium on Network and Distributed System Security” (“SNDSS”). (D.I.272, exs.A-C) The ISOC posted a call on its website for papers for consideration as possible presentations at the SNDSS. (Id., exs. B, C) The ISOC website directed that such papers be sent to Matt Bishop, Program Chair for the SNDSS. (Id., ex. B)

On August 1,1997, Phillip Porras, one of the named inventors of each of the patents in suit, sent an email to Mr. Bishop in response to the ISOC’s call for papers. (D.I.368, ex. E) Mr. Porras emailed Mr. Bishop the Live Traffic paper, which was authored by him and Alfonso Valdes, the same inventors of each of the patents in suit. (Compare D.I. 301, ex. H with exs. A-D) Mr. Porras’s email contained both the full text of the Live Traffic paper, 6 as well as a link to a FTP 7 site where the Live Traffic paper was posted. (D.I. 271 at 2; D.I. 368, ex. E) In the same email, Mr. Porras indicated that the article would remain on the FTP site for about one week. (D.I.368, ex. E) The internet address for the article was ftp://ftp.csl.sri.com/pub/em-eraldfndss98.ps. (Id.)

In addition to the FTP site, plaintiff maintained a world wide web (“WWW”) site 8 on which it placed information on “The EMERALD Project.” 9 (D.I.368, ex. R) The record includes a document which reflects the contents of The EMERALD Project webpage captioned “Current Downloads as of (8/25/97).” (D.I.368, ex.

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179 F. Supp. 3d 339 (D. Delaware, 2016)
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647 F. Supp. 2d 323 (D. Delaware, 2009)

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456 F. Supp. 2d 623, 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75081, 2006 WL 2949142, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sri-international-inc-v-internet-security-systems-inc-ded-2006.