Telemac Corp. v. US/Intelicom Inc.

185 F. Supp. 2d 1068, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23532, 2001 WL 1769831
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedApril 27, 2001
DocketNo. C99-05026
StatusPublished

This text of 185 F. Supp. 2d 1068 (Telemac Corp. v. US/Intelicom Inc.) 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
Telemac Corp. v. US/Intelicom Inc., 185 F. Supp. 2d 1068, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23532, 2001 WL 1769831 (N.D. Cal. 2001).

Opinion

ORDER ON CROSS-MOTIONS FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

WILKEN, District Judge.

Defendant US/Intelicom, Inc. (USI) moves for summary judgment that claims one, two, four through seven, nine through eleven, eighteen, twenty through twenty-seven, twenty-nine and thirty of Plaintiff Telemac Corporation’s (Telemac) U.S. Patent No. 5,577,100 (’100 patent) are invalid. Telemac opposes the motion and cross-moves for partial summary judgment that none of the claims of the TOO patent are invalidated by U.S. Patent No. 5,748,720 (Loder patent). Telemac moves for summary judgment that claims two, five, seven, ten, eleven and twenty-five through twenty-seven of its TOO patent have been infringed by USI. USI opposes this motion and cross-moves for summary judgment that it has not infringed any claim of Tele-mac’s TOO patent.

The matter was heard on January 12, 2001. Having considered all of the papers filed by the parties and oral argument, the Court GRANTS USI’s motion on the validity of the TOO patent in part and DENIES it in part and GRANTS Telemac’s cross-motion. Furthermore, the Court DENIES both motions for summary judgment on infringement.

STATEMENT OF FACTS

I. General Background

Conventional cellular phones operate on a credit system, similar to a credit card. The cellular phone carrier permits its customers to use its airwaves and amass [1071]*1071charges. At the end of the month, the carrier sends a bill for the amount of the charges. This system operates on the assumption that the customer is creditworthy, and thus excludes those with poor credit ratings.

Telemac is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in California. When the company was formed in the early 1990s, it initially focused on the rental cellular phone market, and sought to find a way to minimize the credit risk for carriers. Telemac developed a cellular telephone accounting system, U.S. Patent No. 5,325,418 (’418 patent), which allows the. phones to record the phone number and call duration for each call as it is made. With this technology, when the customer returns the phone, the rental carrier can prepare and present a bill and receive payment immediately.

In 1992, Telemac began work on debit phone technology that would further reduce the credit risk to the carrier by permitting pre-payment by customers. Tele-mac developed a mobile phone system that: (1) stores rate information for different types of calls, (2) uses a complex billing algorithm to apply the appropriate rate to each call to determine the actual charge for the call and (3) uses a debit account stored in the phone to subtract charges for the call from a prepaid account amount. This system also includes a carrier, or system provider, with a centralized computer known as a host processor. The host processor stores information about the identity of each mobile phone, the account history for the customer and the computer codes necessary to control the mobile phone. The system provider thus can communicate directly with the mobile phone user and/or mobile phone to activate and program the phone and to replenish the debit account.

On January 30, 1995, Telemac filed a patent application claiming its debit mobile phone technology. On November 19, 1996, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) issued Telemac the TOO patent for this technology. See Decl. and Initial Expert Report of Dr. Theodore S. Rappaport in Support of Motion for Summary Judgment on Invalidity (Rappaport Validity Decl.), Ex. B at Tab 4. The present dispute centers primarily on claim one of the TOO patent, which describes:

A mobile phone system comprising a system provider having a host processor unit and a plurality of system users each having at least one mobile phone wherein:

the host processor unit has communication means for selectively establishing a communication link with each mobile phone unit; and
each phone unit includes a processor, a clock chip, a memory associated with the processor, program means including a complex billing algorithm and rate data for internally calculating call charges as calls are made, wherein the phone unit includes internal accounting means for generating a debit account with an account amount in the phone unit and decrementing the account amount in the debit account in real time, and wherein the system provider has payment verification means under system provider control for setting a phone use account amount and communicating the account amount to the phone unit, wherein the internal accounting means adds the account amount to the debit account.

Id. at 19:2-21. Although the parties also dispute claims two, four, five, six, seven, nine, ten, eleven, eighteen, twenty through twenty-seven, and twenty-nine, all of these claims are dependent upon claim one.

Prior to filing the instant suit against USI, Telemac filed suit in this Court [1072]*1072against Topp Telecom Inc. (Topp), alleging infringement of the ’100 patent. In that suit, the Court construed claim one of the ’100 patent. The Court then concluded that claim one was invalid as anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 5,631,947 (Wittstein patent). The Court concluded that dependent claims four, six, nine, eighteen, twenty through twenty-four, twenty-nine, and thirty were also anticipated by the Witt-stein patent. The Court subsequently granted Topp’s motion for summary judgment on Telemac’s patent infringement claim, concluding that Topp’s product lacked both the “complex billing algorithm” and “communication means” claim limitations of the ’100 patent.

Telemac appealed the Court’s claim construction, anticipation and non-infringement rulings to the Federal Circuit. Topp cross-appealed. After the claim construction hearing in this case, Topp’s cross-appeal was dismissed and this Court’s rulings were affirmed. See Telemac v. Topp, 247 F.3d 1316 (Fed.Cir.2001).

On May 5, 1999, Telemac sued USI, alleging that USI has infringed, contributed to the infringement of and actively induced others to infringe Telemac’s ’100 patent by making, using and selling in the United States infringing cellular telephone products and services, including USI’s “USI-100” and the “Uniden PCD-2000A” cellular telephone systems. USI counterclaimed that Telemac’s ’100 patent is invalid because the claims are anticipated by or obvious in light of the prior art and fail to comply with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112. USI also counterclaimed that it had not infringed any of the claims of the ’100 patent. During the Markman1 proceedings, the Court rejected USI’s indefiniteness claim and construed claims one, two, seven, twenty-six, and twenty-seven of the ’100 patent. The Court reaffirmed its prior conclusion that claim one of the ’100 patent, along with dependent claims four, six, nine, eighteen, twenty, twenty-one, twenty-three, twenty-four, twenty-nine, and thirty, are invalid as anticipated by the Wittstein patent.2 See Telemac v. USI, September 6, 2000 Order Construing Claims at 23. For that reason, the Court did not construe the invalid dependent claims.

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185 F. Supp. 2d 1068, 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 23532, 2001 WL 1769831, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/telemac-corp-v-usintelicom-inc-cand-2001.