Bose Corp. v. Jbl, Inc., CIV.A.98-10209-PBS.
| Decision Date | 31 August 2000 |
| Docket Number | No. CIV.A.98-10209-PBS.,CIV.A.98-10209-PBS. |
| Citation | 112 F.Supp.2d 138 |
| Parties | BOSE CORPORATION, Plaintiff, v. JBL, INC., Infinity Systems Corporation, Defendants. JBL, Inc., Infinity Systems Corporation, Counter-Claimants, v. Bose Corporation, Counterclaim Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Charles Hieken, Gregory A. Madera, Fish & Richardson, Boston, MA, Shelley K. Wessels, Fish & Richardson, P.C., Menlo Park, CA, Steven R. Katz, Fish & Richardson, Boston, MA, for Bose Corporation.
David Brightman, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, Los Angeles, CA, Neil V. McKittrick, Hill & Barlow, Boston, MA, Victor G. Savikas, Maria K. Nelson, Marsha Durko, Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, Los Angeles, CA, for JBL Inc., Infinity Systems, Inc.
In this patent infringement case, plaintiff Bose Corporation accuses defendant JBL, Inc. and Infinity Systems Corp. (collectively, "JBL") of infringing U.S. Patent No. 5,714,721, entitled "PORTING" ("the '721 patent"), which relates to a port inside a loudspeaker enclosure used to radiate acoustic energy from inside the speaker to the awaiting listener outside the speaker. Bose seeks a finding that JBL willfully infringed the patent by incorporating the '721 invention in several of its speaker models and continuing to sell those products even after JBL learned of the patent. Bose seeks damages in the form of lost profits, reasonable royalties, and a permanent injunction. Bose also seeks trebling of its damages and attorneys' fees.
JBL maintains that several of its products are non-infringing, and as to its admittedly infringing products, asserts that the '721 patent is invalid on the grounds of obviousness and prior sale/offer for sale in the United States.1
After a jury-waived trial, I ORDER entry of judgment for the plaintiff, Bose. Bose is awarded damages of $5,676,718.32. I also ORDER that a permanent injunction enter, enjoining the defendants from further infringement of the '721 patent.
Both parties are in the business of making loudspeakers and audio equipment. Plaintiff Bose Corporation ("Bose") was founded by Dr. Amar Bose about thirty-five years ago, and makes loudspeakers and audio equipment for the consumer and automotive market. Bose also makes headsets for pilots and passengers of commercial aircraft.
The defendant, JBL, Inc. ("JBL") was founded by James B. Lansing in the 1940's, and is also in the business of designing and manufacturing loudspeakers. JBL entered the consumer loudspeaker business in the 1950's, and has been in the business since that time. Defendant Infinity was founded by three aerospace engineers in the late 1960's. Infinity set out to integrate aerospace engineering technology into the audio industry to improve performance of music systems. Infinity introduced the industry's first satellite/subwoofer2 speaker system. Both JBL and Infinity are owned by Harmon, International.
In modern loudspeaker systems, sounds are created by a "transducer." A transducer converts electrical energy into acoustical energy by moving a suspended paper or metal diaphragm forward and backward in a linear manner. The movement of this diaphragm acts as an air pump, which creates sounds that are recognizable by the human ear.
In an early loudspeaker design, called a "bass reflex" design, the transducer is mounted in a box that has a specially designed opening called a port, or vent. In a bass reflex speaker, most of the sound or acoustic energy radiates from the loudspeaker enclosure directly from the transducer itself. Specifically, the transducer radiates the bass sound into the listening environment throughout much of the lower frequency range (i.e., sounds that have a low pitch). The port opening is used to create a "Helmholtz resonance," which is a sound that is created when air moves across the surface of any opening.3 By creating a Helmholtz resonance, the port serves to expand the range of bass sounds a speaker can produce at the lowest frequencies.
After the bass reflex design, loudspeaker engineers developed the "coupled cavity" or "band pass" system, which is a fully enclosed box whose only opening is the port. In a band pass system, the transducer is housed completely within the enclosure and all sound radiates from ports. Here, the port assumes a more important role because it is the source of all sound.
Ideally, the sound radiating from a speaker accurately represents the sound intended to be played. For example, if a stereo system sends a single pure tone to the speaker, then the speaker should respond with a single pure tone. However, in actuality, no speaker system is perfect, and various acoustic phenomena come into play. These include: nonlinearity; harmonic distortion; and port noise. A brief description of each of these concepts is important, because they highlight the challenges posed by loudspeaker design, the particular role of the port, and the function of the '721 invention.
Nonlinearity, or compression, is the term used to describe the nonlinear relationship between the input into the speaker, in terms of electrical power, and the output in terms of sound pressure level.4 Ideally, there would be a direct relationship between input (measured in volts) and output (measured in decibels) such that a graph depicting that relationship would form a straight line. In reality, however, the output does not measure up to what one would expect given the input. One of the functions of a port tube is to maximize the degree to which the input and output share a linear relationship.
Two other "impurities" that affect the quality of the sound created by the speaker are harmonic distortion and port noise. Harmonic distortion consists of extraneous sounds at precise frequencies that are multiples of the base frequency.5 For example, in a loudspeaker playing a 50 hertz (Hz) tone, harmonic distortion occurs at 100 Hz, 150 Hz, 200 Hz, 250 Hz and so on. The effect of harmonic distortion is to change the sound by destroying the purity of the pitch. Harmonic distortion is a distinct source of unwanted extraneous sound, and can be measured separately. A good port will work to minimize the level of harmonic distortion.
Port noise consists of the extraneous sounds produced across the frequency spectrum. Port noise is a particular problem at high volume levels where large amounts of air must be moved back and forth within the port. The larger the volume of air moving through the port, the more erratic and "jumbled" the air flow becomes. This erratic behavior of the air as it moves through and exits the port tube is known as turbulence. Turbulence in the port creates port noise, which, at least in one form, makes a "chuffing" sound. Chuffing is similar to the buffeting sound created when a car window is rolled down on a highway. If it is present, port noise is the most notable thing a listener would hear. Thus, a good port design should also minimize port noise.
In 1987, Bose introduced a three-piece loudspeaker design called the Acoustimass 5, consisting of a bass module and two small satellite speakers. The bass module produced the lower frequency, or bass, sounds while the satellite speakers produced the higher frequency sounds. The concept behind the Acoustimass system was to produce "virtually invisible" loudspeakers by building a bass module that could be hidden anywhere in a room, and having small satellite speakers to reproduce the higher pitched notes. For the system to work properly, the listener must not be able to detect where the bass sound is coming from; the sound should be "nonlocalizable." From the listener's perspective, all bass sound should appear as if it is radiating from the small satellite speakers.
The bass module of the Acoustimass 5, Series I was a band pass design, with the output transducers (or "woofers,"6 as they are known in the industry) buried within the enclosure itself. Essentially, all of the sound generated by the woofers radiated from the port in the side of the enclosure. The bass module of the Series I used straight, cylindrical ports. However, when the Series I system was played loudly, the bass module would emit port noise. The port noise contained higher frequency components, or chuffing, giving away the location of the bass module. This destroyed the "nonlocalizability" feature that was a goal of the system.
The port noise problem became a focus of Bose engineers as they set out to design the Acoustimass 5, Series II bass enclosure to replace the predecessor Series I. Engineer Brian Gawronski began experimenting with a prototype bass box, first altering the cylindrical port tube by placing flared ends on the input and output side. After informal testing, Gawronski concluded that these ends would not provide a significantly better performance than the straight cylindrical port tube. Gawronski confirmed this belief by devising a test to measure quantitatively port noise. In the test, a computer generated a 50 Hz pure tone that was played by the bass module under test, and a microphone was placed about four or five inches away from the bass module. The computer applied the tone, and recorded the sound pressure produced by the 50 Hz tone being picked up by the microphone. The computer generated a graph with this data, showing the output of the bass module. Gawronski recorded these graphs in his notebook, which showed that the straight port with rounded flared ends exhibited some improvement over the straight cylindrical port. Gawronski did not consider that improvement to be sufficient, however, and continued to struggle with the port noise problem.
In the spring of 1990, Gawronski shared his port noise complaint with his cubicle neighbor at Bose, engineer Gerald Caron....
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Uniloc U.S. Inc. v. Microsoft Corp..
...Time Warner Inc., 470 F.Supp.2d 424, 432 n. 38 (D.Del.2007) (allowing 25% rule because its use was not disputed); Bose Corp. v. JBL, Inc., 112 F.Supp.2d 138, 167 (D.Mass.2000) (“Courts have found the 25%/75% approach to be a useful approach to arriving at a baseline royalty rate.... [The op......
-
Uniloc USA. Inc v. Microsoft Corp., 2010-1035
...Warner Inc., 470 F. Supp. 2d 424, 432 n.38 (D. Del. 2007) (allowing 25% rule because its use was not disputed); Bose Corp. v. JBL, Inc., 112 F. Supp. 2d 138, 167 (D. Mass. 2000) ("Courts have found the 25%/75% approach to be a useful approach to arriving at a baseline royalty rate.... [The ......
-
Bowling v. Hasbro, Inc., C.A. No. 05-229 S.
...to reach agreement, including the amount of profit the licensee would be willing to contribute to the license. Bose Corp. v. JBL, Inc., 112 F.Supp.2d 138, 165-67 (D.Mass.2000). 6. "To recover lost profits as actual damages, a patent holder must demonstrate that there was a reasonable probab......
-
Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. v. St. Jude Medical, Inc.
...accounting period), aff'd in part, vacated in part, remanded on other grounds, 370 F.3d 1131 (Fed.Cir.2004); Bose Corp. v. JBL, Inc., 112 F.Supp.2d 138, 160 (D.Mass.2000) (finding record was "too scant on the availability of `acceptable' substitutes to be persuasive"); Cordis Corp. v. Bosto......