Iridescent Networks, Inc. v. At&T Mobility, LLC

• Decision Date: 12 August 2019
• Docket Number: 2018-1449
• Citation: 933 F.3d 1345
• Parties: IRIDESCENT NETWORKS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant v. AT&T MOBILITY, LLC, Ericsson Inc., Defendants-Appellees
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit

933 F.3d 1345

IRIDESCENT NETWORKS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant

v.AT&T MOBILITY, LLC, Ericsson Inc., Defendants-Appellees

2018-1449

United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit.

Decided: August 12, 2019

Shawn Daniel Blackburn, Susman Godfrey LLP, Houston, TX, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by Parker C. Folse, III, Ian B. Crosby, Seattle, WA; Eric J. Enger, Alden Harris, Leslie Payne, Heim, Payne & Chorush, LLP, Houston, TX.

Michael Hawes, Baker Botts, LLP, Houston, TX, argued for defendants-appellees. Also represented by Douglas M. Kubehl, Bethany Rose Ford, Jeffery Scott Becker, Dallas, TX. Defendant-appellee AT & T Mobility, LLC also represented by Bryant C. Boren, Jr., Palo Alto, CA.

Before Prost, Chief Judge, Reyna and Taranto, Circuit Judges.

Reyna, Circuit Judge.

Iridescent Networks, Inc. sued AT & T Mobility, LLC and Ericsson Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas for infringement of U.S. Patent No. 8,036,119. Following claim construction, the parties jointly stipulated to noninfringement, and the district court entered judgment in favor of AT & T Mobility, LLC and Ericsson Inc. Iridescent Networks, Inc. appeals on the ground that the district court erred in its construction of the term "high quality of service connection." Because the district court correctly construed this term, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

I. The ’119 Patent

Iridescent Networks, Inc. ("Iridescent") is the assignee of U.S. Patent No. 8,036,119 ("the ’119 patent"), entitled "System and Method of Providing Bandwidth on Demand." The ’119 patent is directed to a system and method of network communication that provides guaranteed bandwidth on demand for applications that require high bandwidth and minimizes data delay and loss during transmission.¹ ’119 patent col. 1 ll. 19–22, 58–60, col. 3 ll. 46–48, col. 6 ll. 21–23.

The ’119 patent discloses that prior art networks transmit data packets in an ad hoc manner, with each packet taking an unpredictable route to its destination. Id. col. 1 ll. 35–45. This is undesirable because some applications delivered on broadband "are very sensitive to any delay and ... any variance in the delay" of packet transmission. Id. col. 1 l. 66–col. 2 l. 2. The ’119 patent teaches that some applications "are also sensitive to any packets ... which may be lost in the transmission (0.0001% packet loss is the preferred quality for video transmission)." Id. col. 2 ll. 2–5. The ’119 patent also teaches that some applications require significantly more bandwidth than others to provide tolerable levels of quality. Id. col. 1 ll. 58–60, col. 3 ll. 31–45. The ’119 patent describes video applications as examples of such applications and explains that prior art "video compression methods vary greatly in the bandwidth they require to transport the video in real-time—some solutions are as low as 64 kbps up to 300 Mbps." Id. col. 3 ll. 31–45. Figure 3 of the ’119 patent illustrates bandwidth, packet loss, and latency requirements of several applications, including different video applications:

Id. Fig. 3.

To deal with these parameter-sensitive applications, the ’119 patent discloses a system and method for managing network traffic routes and bandwidth availability to minimize adverse network conditions and to assure that the network connection maintains a requested minimum level of one of these three parameters. Id. col. 5 l. 64–col. 6 l. 3. Rather than using existing ad hoc network routes, the invention creates custom routes to maximize the availability of the required bandwidth, minimize packet loss, and reduce latency. Id. col. 5 ll. 64–67; id. col. 6 ll. 57–61. According to the ’119 patent, this results in a "high quality" network connection with bandwidth "on demand." Id. col. 5 ll. 23–29. Applications that do not have minimum network connection parameter requirements may be routed through existing "best-effort" ad hoc network connections using "existing network components." Id. col. 5 ll. 14–20. Claim 1 is illustrative and recites:

1. A method for providing bandwidth on demand comprising:

receiving, by a controller positioned in a network, a request for a high quality of service connection supporting any one of a plurality of one-way and two-way traffic types between an originating end-point and a terminating end-point, wherein the request comes from the originating end-point and includes at least one of a requested amount of bandwidth and a codec;

determining, by the controller, whether the originating end-point is authorized to use the requested amount of bandwidth or the codec and whether the terminating end-point can be reached by the controller;

directing, by the controller, a portal that is positioned in the network and physically separate from the controller to allocate local port resources of the portal for the connection;

negotiating, by the controller, to reserve far-end resources for the terminating end-point; and

providing, by the controller to the portal, routing instructions for traffic corresponding to the connection so that the traffic is directed by the portal based only on the routing instructions provided by the controller, wherein the portal does not perform any independent routing on the traffic, and wherein the connection extending from the originating end-point to the terminating end-point is provided by a dedicated bearer path that includes a required route supported by the portal and dynamically provisioned by the controller, and wherein control paths for the connection are supported only between each of the originating and terminating end-points and the controller and between the portal and the controller.

Id. col. 7 l. 43–col. 8 l. 7 (emphasis added).

The application that led to the ’119 patent is a continuation of U.S. Application No. 11/743,470 ("the parent application"), which issued as U.S. Patent No. 7,639,612, also assigned to Iridescent. Both patents share a substantially identical specification.

During prosecution of the parent application, the examiner rejected several claims containing a similar limitation: "high quality and low latency bandwidth." J.A. 271, 369. The examiner explained that this limitation was rejected as not enabled because the specification "d[id] not adequately describe how high quality and low latency are determined." J.A. 368–69; see also J.A. 270–71. In response, the applicant amended the claims to replace the rejected term with the "high quality of service connection" limitation at issue in this appeal. J.A. 140. The applicant argued that Figure 3 and its description supported this new claim language:

As illustrated by the boxed set of applications on the left side of Fig. 3, high QoS (quality of service) may be viewed in the present application as having speeds varying from approximately 1–300 megabits per second, packet loss requirements that are typically about 10-5, and latency requirements that are typically less than one second. These are commonly used parameters and, as illustrated in Fig. 3, often vary somewhat based on the type of application. For example, video conferencing may be possible with the listed parameters, while HD video multicasting typically has more stringent requirements in order to be acceptable.

....

Accordingly, Applicant submits that the term "high quality of service connection" is supported by the various connection parameters illustrated for high quality of service enabled bandwidth applications in Fig. 3.

J.A. 141. After considering Iridescent’s arguments, the examiner withdrew the rejection and allowed the amended claims containing the "high quality of service connection" limitation to issue.

II. District Court Proceedings

On July 11, 2016, Iridescent brought suit against AT & T Mobility, LLC and Ericsson Inc. (collectively, "AT & T") for infringement of claims 1, 3–4, 7, and 11 of the ’119 patent. Claim 1 was the only asserted independent claim. During claim construction proceedings, Iridescent proposed broadly construing the term "high quality of service connection" to mean "a connection in which one or more quality of service connection parameters, including bandwidth, latency, and/or packet loss, are assured from end-to-end based on the requirements of the application." Iridescent Networks, Inc. v. AT&T Mobility, LLC , No. 6:16-CV-01003, 2017 WL 3033400, at *3 (E.D. Tex. July 18, 2017) (" Claim Construction Order "). The magistrate judge, however, largely adopted AT & T’s proposed construction, construing the term to mean "a connection that assures connection speed of at least approximately one megabit per second and, where applicable based on the type of application, packet loss requirements that are about 10-5 and latency requirements that are less than one second." Id. at *5. The magistrate judge determined that "high quality of service connection" is a term of degree that is "not a known term of art, but rather a term coined by the patentee." Id. at *4. Relying on the ’119 patent ’s intrinsic record, the magistrate judge explained that Figure 3 of the ’119 patent and Iridescent’s statements during prosecution of the parent application "serve to provide some standard for measuring this term of degree." Id. at *5 (internal quotation marks omitted).

Iridescent subsequently objected to the magistrate judge’s construction, raising the same arguments it renews on appeal. Iridescent Networks, Inc. v. AT&T Mobility, LLC , No. 6:16-CV-01003, 2017 WL 10185852, at *1–3 (E.D. Tex. Dec. 1, 2017) (" Order Adopting Constructions "). The district judge overruled Iridescent’s objections, determining that the magistrate judge’s construction was not clearly erroneous or contrary to law. Id. at *3.

The parties agreed that under the district court’s construction, AT & T’s accused network products and services were excluded, and they jointly stipulated to noninfringement. On December 18, 2017, the court entered a final judgment against Iridescent. Iridescent timely appealed. We have jurisdiction over this appeal under 28...