Comcast IP Holdings I LLC v. Sprint Commc'ns Co., 2015-1992

• Decision Date: 07 March 2017
• Docket Number: 2015-1992
• Citation: 850 F.3d 1302
• Parties: COMCAST IP HOLDINGS I LLC, Plaintiff-Appellee v. SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY, L.P., Sprint Spectrum LP, Nextel Operations, Inc., Defendants-Appellants
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit

850 F.3d 1302

COMCAST IP HOLDINGS I LLC, Plaintiff-Appellee

v.SPRINT COMMUNICATIONS COMPANY, L.P., Sprint Spectrum LP, Nextel Operations, Inc., Defendants-Appellants

2015-1992

United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit.

Decided: March 7, 2017

Matthew B. Lehr , Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, Menlo Park, CA, argued for plaintiff-appellee. Also represented by Anthony I. Fenwick, Gareth Dewalt, David Lisson .

Brian Charles Riopelle , McGuire Woods LLP, Richmond, VA, argued for defendants-appellants. Also represented by David Evan Finkelson, Brian David Schmalzbach ; Rachelle Harley Thompson , Raleigh, NC.

Before O'Malley, Reyna, and Chen, Circuit Judges.

Chen, Circuit Judge.

Comcast IP Holdings I LLC (Comcast) sued Sprint Communications Company LP, Sprint Spectrum L.P., and Nextel Operations, Inc. (collectively, Sprint) for infringement of, among other patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 8,170,008, 7,012,916, and 8,204,046 (collectively, Low Patents), which are generally directed to the use of computer network technology to facilitate a telephone call (phone call or call). After a jury trial, the jury found that Sprint's handling of certain phone calls infringed claims 1, 13, and 27 of the '008 Patent, claim 45 of the '916 Patent, and claims 90 and 113 of the '046 Patent, and awarded Comcast a $7.5 million damages award. The district court then denied Sprint's motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL), or in the alternative, for a new trial, and added prejudgment interest to the damages award. Sprint has appealed various rulings from the district court. Because we see no error in these rulings, we affirm the district court's entry of judgment against Sprint.

BACKGROUND

A. The Claimed Inventions

The Low Patents are in the same patent family¹ and are generally directed to methods of using Domain Name System (DNS) technology, such as the Internet, to initiate and route a phone call through a switched telecommunication system.

One example of a switched telecommunication system is a public switched telephone network (PSTN), which provides for a bearer channel (i.e., "interconnection") between two telephones "according to a called-party telephone number input at the calling-party telephone." '008 Patent col. 2 ll. 13–17; see also id. col. 1 ll. 31–41 (defining a switched telecommunication system as "a system comprising a bearer network with switches for setting up a bearer channel through the network"). A PSTN is shown in Figure 1.

Id. fig. 1. In Figure 1

customer premises equipment, CPE[ ] 10 (such as standard analogue telephones....) are connected through an access network 11 to switching points, SPs 12. The SPs 12 form nodes in an inter-exchange network 13 made up of interconnecting trunks 14 and SPs that are controlled by control entities 15 in the SPs. The control effected by the control entities 15 is determined by signalling inputs received from the CPEs and other SPs, and involves call setup, maintenance and clearance to provide the desired bearer channel between calling CPE and called CPE. Conceptually, the PSTN may be thought of as a bearer network and a control (signalling) network, the function of the latter being to effect call control through the bearer network, namely the control of setup, maintenance and take down of bearer channels through the bearer network; in practice, the bearer and signalling networks may use the same physical circuits and even the same logical channels.

Id. col. 2 ll. 19–35.

The Low Patents also explain that a "communication system" generally has "a broader meaning than switched telecommunication system" and "include[s] datagram-based communication systems where each data packet is independently routed through a bearer network without following a predetermined bearer channel." Id. col. 1 ll. 50–55. One example of a datagram-based communication system is the Internet. See, e.g. , Appellant Br. at 40.

Asserted claim 1 is representative of the claimed invention in the '008 Patent :

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, over a switched telecommunication system, a request;

determining, responsive to the request, a call destination using domain name system signaling; and

initiating a call through the switched telecommunication system between a calling party and the call destination that was determined as a result of said domain name system signaling.

Id. col. 32 ll. 46–55.

Asserted claims 45 and claim 90 below are representative of the claimed inventions for the '916 Patent and the '046 Patent.

45. A method of accessing communications data for contacting a target entity, said method comprising:

forming, from a number string identifying the target entity, a domain name by a process including parsing at least a substantial portion of the number string into at least a part of said domain name;

supplying the domain name formed to a DNS-type database system and receiving back a resource record including an URI [uniform resource identifier] for locating communications data associated with the domain name; and

using the URI received back to access said communications data.

'916 Patent col. 36 ll. 56–67.

90. A method, comprising:

forming, by at least one computing device, from a number string identifying a target entity, a domain name by a process including parsing at least a portion of the number string into at least a part of said domain name; and

supplying, by the at least one computing device, the domain name to a database and receiving back from that database a resource record including a uniform resource identifier (URI) of the target entity.

'046 Patent col. 45 l. 65–col. 46 l. 6.

B. The Accused Methods

The six accused methods are ways in which Sprint connects a calling party with a called party (call flows), and there is no dispute as to how these accused call flows operate.

Comcast accused three call flows of infringing the '008 Patent. See Appellant Br. at 15. These calls generally begin on Sprint's wireless cellular network that uses a standard known as Code Division Multiple Access, or "CDMA" (CDMA Network). The calls then travel through an Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem network (IMS Network). "The IMS Network includes an IMS core, which is a collection of servers on a packet-based network used to route and process signaling traffic" for the calls. Id. at 16 n.7.

When a call enters the IMS core, it does so through a media gateway controller, or "MGC." Id. at 18. Once the call enters the IMS core, "a network element named a call session control function ('CSCF') uses [DNS] signaling to determine an IP address used to route the call to a session border controller ('SBC')." Id. at 18–19. "The SBC is another server on the IMS core." Id. at 19. From there, the call is routed outside of the IMS core, and then back into the IMS core to another MGC. Id. "The MGC is not specific to any particular telephone number or service provider." Id. From the MGC, the call is ultimately routed to the called party. Id.

Comcast accused another three call flows of infringing the '916 Patent and the '046 Patent. Id. at 15. Common to these call flows are their use of a process referred to as "ENUM" to route calls through the IMS core. "That method starts with a [called] telephone number, removes any special characters, reverses the numbers, places a dot between each number, and adds 'e.164.arpa' to the end" of the number." Id. at 27.

C. Procedural Background

Comcast asserted claims 1, 13, and 27 of the '008 Patent, claim 45 of the '916 Patent, and claims 90 and 113 of the '046 Patent against Sprint in the District of Delaware.² The parties disputed the claim constructions for, among other terms, the term "switched telecommunication system" in the '008 Patent and the term "parsing" in the '916 Patent and the '046 Patent. For the term "switched telecommunication system," the parties disagreed as to whether such a system could include elements of a datagram-based system. J.A. at 3. The district court concluded that "[a] system with elements of both switches and a 'datagram-based system' is not necessarily outside the scope of a 'switched telecommunication system.' " Id. at 4. "A 'communication system' is still a broader concept than a 'switched telecommunication system' even where the 'switched telecommunication system' has elements of a 'datagram-based system,' because a 'switched telecommunication system' at a minimum must have switches and function on a bearer network." Id.

As for the term "parsing," the district court determined that "parsing" was an automated process because it necessarily required a computer. See id. at 39. And the parties agreed that the term must include "analyzing a string according to a set of rules of a grammar." Id. at 40. But they differed on whether the relevant prosecution histories of the '916 Patent and the '046 Patent demonstrated disavowals of claim scope so as to limit the term "parsing." See id. The district court saw no clear disavowals of claim scope in the prosecution histories. Id.

After a six-day jury trial, the jury found that all of the asserted claims of the Low Patents were infringed by their respective accused call flows and awarded Comcast a lump sum payment of $7.5 million in damages. Id. at 49. Sprint then moved for JMOL, as well as for a new trial, on several bases. See id. at 48–69. For example, Sprint argued that there was insufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict as to the '008 Patent because Comcast's evidence, in the form of expert testimony from Dr. Eric Burger, only demonstrated that "any destination along the way in route of a call" could be a "call destination," and wrongly suggested that there could be "multiple destinations" along a call flow. Id. at 53–54. Sprint insisted this understanding of "call destination" was flawed because the claim term can only refer to "the absolute final point in the call flow, or the receiving phone," otherwise the term would be superfluous. Id. at 52, 54.

The district court disagreed with Sprint. The district court noted that the jury was...