WiAV Solutions LLC v. Motorola, Inc.

631 F.3d 1257, 97 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1484, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 25966, 2010 WL 5256801
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit·Decided December 22, 2010·No. 2010-1266·Published·Cited by 63 cases

Opinion

LINN, Circuit Judge.

WiAV Solutions LLC (“WiAV”) is the owner of United States Patent No. 6,539,-205 (“the '205 Patent”) and No. 6,680,920 (“the '920 Patent”) and the purported exclusive licensee in a specific field of use of the following seven patents owned by Mindspeed Technologies, Inc. (“Mind-speed”): United States Patent No. 6,104,-992; No. 6,256,606; No. 6,385,573 (“the '573 Patent”); No. 6,507,814; No. 6,633,-841; No. 7,120,578; and No. 7,266,493 (“the '493 Patent”) (collectively, “the Mindspeed Patents”). WiAV filed a complaint alleging that defendants Motorola, Inc.; Nokia Corporation; Nokia Inc.; Palm, Inc.; Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications (USA), Inc.; Personal Com *1260 munications Devices LLC; Personal Communications Devices Holdings, LLC; and UTStarcom, Inc. (collectively, “the Defendants”) and Sony Ericsson Mobile Communications AB had infringed all nine patents. At the urging of the Defendants, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia dismissed the counts of WiAV’s complaint concerning the Mindspeed Patents for lack of constitutional standing. WiAV Solutions LLC v. Motorola, Inc., 679 F.Supp.2d 639 (E.D.Va.2009) (“Dismissal Order”). The district court concluded that WiAV lacked constitutional standing to assert the Mind-speed Patents against the Defendants because several third parties have a limited right to license the patents in WiAV’s alleged exclusive field of use. Id. at 648.

Because the district court erred when it concluded that the third-party licensing rights at issue deprived WiAV of constitutional standing to assert the Mindspeed Patents against the Defendants, this court reverses the judgment of the district court and remands for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. Background

A. The Mindspeed Patents

The Mindspeed Patents relate to aspects of signal transmission, as well as the encoding and decoding of data. At the center of this dispute are licensing rights in the Mindspeed Patents held by six third parties: Conexant Systems, Inc. (“Conexant”); Rockwell Science Center, LLC (“Rockwell Science Center”); Skyworks Solutions, Inc. (“Skyworks”); Qualcomm Incorporated (“Qualcomm”); Mindspeed; and Sipro Lab Telecom (“Sipro”). The rights stem from a series of spin offs and licensing agreements dating back to the late 1990’s. These transactions, as well as the transaction purporting to grant WiAV an exclusive license to the Mindspeed Patents, are summarized below.

1. Rockwell Science CenterConexant License

Rockwell International Corporation (“Rockwell International”), the original owner of the Mindspeed Patents, effected an assignment of the patents to Conexant when Rockwell International spun off the company in December 1998. As part of the spin-off, Conexant granted a subsidiary of Rockwell International, Rockwell Science Center, a limited, non-exclusive license to use the Mindspeed Patents in connection with its business. Conexant also permitted Rockwell Science Center to: (1) sublicense Rockwell International and its “Affiliates,” i.e., any entity that “controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with” Rockwell International; and (2) transfer the license in connection with the sale by either Rockwell International or its Affiliates of all or part of their respective businesses “to which such intellectual property rights relate.”

2. Conexant^Skyworks License

When Conexant subsequently spun off a portion of its business as Skyworks in January 2003, Conexant and Skyworks executed an agreement giving Skyworks an exclusive license in the field of ‘Wireless Handsets” to commercialize products covered by the Mindspeed Patents. The agreement defines a “Wireless Handset” as a device (or a component of a device) that “is capable of wireless communication of real-time voice” and “communicates directly to a Wireless WAN Infrastructure.” Within this limited field, the agreement grants Skyworks the exclusive right to assert infringement claims against third parties and to assign or sublicense its rights as it sees fit. The agreement also provides Skyworks the exclusive right to *1261 license the patents to Qualcomm in all fields, as well as the right to assert infringement claims under the patents against Qualcomm in all fields, but prohibits Skyworks from assigning these rights without the prior written consent of Conexant.

For its part, Conexant retained the right under the agreement to “make, have made, use, offer to sell, export, and import Conexant Products in the field of Wireless Handsets.” The agreement defines “Conexant Products” as products in which “the specifications and designs ... are developed or owned by, or exclusively licensed to, Conexant or a Subsidiary of Conexant.” Conexant may license this right as part of “a divestiture, sale, or spin-off of any Conexant business unit ... and/or ... to any third party that works under a joint development agreement with Conexant” to develop a Conexant Product. Conexant also reserved the right to sublicense its wholly-owned subsidiary Mind-speed with respect to “Mindspeed Products” — products having “specifications and designs ... developed or owned by, or exclusively licensed to Mindspeed or a Mindspeed Subsidiary” — including a limited right to allow Mindspeed to assign and license its rights in the Mindspeed Patents.

3. Conexant-Mindspeed License

Conexant assigned title to the Mind-speed Patents to their current holder, Mindspeed, when Conexant spun off Mind-speed in June 2003. In addition, Conexant gave Mindspeed rights in the Mindspeed Patents similar to those Conexant had reserved for itself when it spun off Sky-works. In particular, Conexant granted Mindspeed a non-exclusive license to, among other things, produce and market Mindspeed Products. Conexant also permitted Mindspeed to: (1) assign some of its rights to Mindspeed subsidiaries; and (2) sublicense its rights to Mindspeed subsidiaries; to divested, sold, or spun-off business units; and to joint development partners working on Mindspeed Products. Conexant again reserved for itself a similar set of rights to practice, assign, and license the patents with respect to Conexant Products.

4. Skyworks-Qualcomm License

In April 2005, two years after Skyworks received the right to license Qualcomm, Skyworks exercised that right and granted Qualcomm a non-exclusive license to make, import, and sell components for a particular type of wireless communication device. The license permits Qualcomm to extend this right to Qualcomm “Affiliates,” i.e., “any present or future Parent ... or ... Subsidiary” of Qualcomm.

5. Mindspeed-Sipro License

The parties do not dispute that Mind-speed granted Sipro the right to offer a limited license to two of the Mindspeed Patents (the '573 and '493 patents) as part of a patent pool for the G.729.1 speech coding standard. The license permits licensees to manufacture and sell “Licensed Products” for the sole purpose of encoding and decoding data in accordance with the speech coding standard.

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WiAV Solutions LLC v. Motorola, Inc., 631 F.3d 1257, 97 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1484, 2010 U.S. App. LEXIS 25966, 2010 WL 5256801 (Fed. Cir. 2010).

631 F.3d 1257 (WiAV Solutions LLC v. Motorola, Inc.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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