Pixion, Inc. v. Citrix Sys., Inc.

• Decision Date: 13 August 2012
• Docket Number: No. C 09-03496 SI,C 09-03496 SI
• Parties: PIXION, INC., Plaintiff, v. CITRIX SYSTEMS, INC., and CITRIX ONLINE, LLC. Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

PIXION, INC., Plaintiff,

v.CITRIX SYSTEMS, INC., and CITRIX ONLINE, LLC. Defendants.

No. C 09-03496 SI

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

Dated: August 13, 2012

ORDER GRANTING DEFENDANTS'

MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT

On June 15, 2012, defendant Citrix Systems, Inc. ("Citrix") filed a motion for summary judgment of non-infringement and invalidity in this patent dispute. Plaintiff Pixion, Inc. opposed on June 26, 2012, and Citrix replied on July 6, 2012. The Court held a hearing on the motion on July 13, 2012. Having considered the arguments of counsel and the papers submitted, and for good cause shown, the Court GRANTS the motion.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Pixion, Inc. ("Pixion") is a corporation formed in 1995 that focuses on developing "cost-effective interactive online meeting environments such as web conferencing solutions." Second Am. Compl. (Doc. 62) at 2. Plaintiff alleges that defendants Citrix Systems, Inc. and Citrix Online, LLC (collectively "Citrix") "makes, uses, offers to sell, and sells in the United States and imports into the United States online conferencing and collaboration systems" that infringe various patents belonging to Pixion. Id. at 5. Specifically, plaintiffs allege infringement of four related patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 7,369,515 ("'515 Patent"), 7,426,191 ("'191 Patent"), 7,715,331 ("'331 Patent"), and 7,813,304 ("'304Patent") (collectively the "conference system patents"); and a fifth patent pertaining to introducing a client to a conference, U.S. Patent No. 7,877,489 ("'489 Patent").¹ Citrix brings this motion for summary judgment on non-infringement of the four conference system patents only, as well as invalidity of the asserted claims of all five patents (collectively the "patents-in-suit").² The Court issued a Claim Construction Order in this case on November 1, 2011. See Doc. 91. On March 8, 2012, the Court granted Pixion's motion for judgment on one of Citrix's counterclaims, finding that Pixion did not engage in inequitable conduct by failing to disclose certain office actions to the PTO during the concurrent prosecution of its patents. See Doc. 113. On April 16, 2012, the Court denied Citrix's motion for leave to amend its counterclaim with additional allegations that Pixion engaged in inequitable conduct by failing to disclose certain prior art. See Doc. 132.

A. Conference System Patents

The '515, '191, '331, and '304 patents share the same written description, figures, and title: "Providing Conference Data In A Network Communications System Based On Client Or Server Information Examined During A Conference." The patents aim to solve the problem of connecting computers with different network speeds and different hardware capabilities to a shared web conference. In the words of the patentee, "[v]aried techniques reduce the perceived end-to-end latency and take advantage of software and hardware capabilities that assets connected to the system may possess." '191, Abstract. The invention "transports at varying speeds those streams where intermediate updates can be dropped if they are obsoleted by later arriving data updates, optimizing the utilization of network and node resources." Id. ¶

The '515 and '191 patents were issued in 2008, and are the respective parents of the '304 and '331 patents, which issued in 2010. The conference system patents claim priority to Provisional Patent Application 60/014,242, filed March 26, 1996. The '515/'304 and '191/'331 patents (the parent/childpatents have nearly identical claims) differ only as to when the conference server gathers the client information: in the '515/'304 patents, the capabilities of each attendee are collected before the client joins the conference (i.e. before the server sends conference data), whereas in the '191/'331 patents, the conference server gathers client capabilities during the conference. The central issue in the infringement dispute is how the conference data is provided, and whether the characteristics of the provided data are based on the capabilities of a client. Each of the conference system patents contains two independent claims, a system claim and a method claim. The '515/'304 patents claim the following (emphasis showing critical terms):

1. A conferencing system comprising:

a conference server;

at least one client the at least one client including a web browser; and

at least one network connection coupling the conference server and the at least one lient, the conference server providing conferencing data to the at least one client via the at least one network connection after the client-server connection is established, the client-server connection established via the web browser at the at least one client having been navigated to a Universal Resource Locator associated with a conference, and wherein one or more characteristics of the provided conferencing data are based on current capabilities of the at least one client validated after establishing the client-server connection but prior to the at least one client joining the conference.

17. A method for conferencing between a server and at least one client in a conferencing system, the method comprising:

establishing a network connection between the server and the at least one client, the network connection established via a web browser at the at least one client having been navigated to a Universal Resource Locator associated with a conference;

determining one or more characteristics of conferencing data for delivery during the conference, the determination based on current capabilities of the at least one client validated after establishing the client-server connection but prior to the at least one client joining the conference; and

providing the conferencing data from the server to the at least one client after establishing the network connection between the server and the at least one client and validating the current capabilities of the at least one client, the provided conference data based on the current capabilities of the at least one client.

'515, 36:7-24, 37:14-32.

The '191/'331 patents contain a similar Claim 1 with the limitation: "wherein one or more characteristics of the provided conferencing data are based on client or server information examined subsequent to both the client-server connection having been established and the client joining the conference." '191 Patent; 35: 24-39. The method in '191/'331 patents is contained in Claim 39:

39. A method for conferencing between a server and at least one client in a conferencing system, comprising:

establishing a network connection between the server and the at least one client, the network connection established via a web browser at the at least one client having been navigated to a Universal Resource Locator associated with a conference;

examining client or server information subsequent to both the client-server connection having been established and the client joining the conference; and

providing conferencing data from the server to the at least one client alter establishing a client-server connection and the at least one client having joined the conference, wherein one or more characteristics of the conferencing data are based on the examined client or server information.

'191, 37:33-38:14.

The specification describes one embodiment of the invention as follows:

The attendee clients are classified into one of three classes: Class 1 clients are fast clients on a fast network; Class 2 clients are slow clients on a fast network; Class 3 clients are clients on slow networks and/or slow clients which cannot process and/or receive the data required of Class 2 clients. Each attendee client is assigned to a class, on the basis of announced or measured characteristics of the client and its network connection.

'515, 21:5-11.

In this embodiment, a client's class will determine the number of "data blocks" from the conference it will receive. '515, 21:11-65. For example, "Class 2 is used for fast network connections to slow machines. . . A Class 2 client might not be able to process each block, even uncompressed blocks, in which case [the] filter will discard blocks." '515, 21:30-34. By adjusting the type and quantity of data sent and received from attendees, the system (and the conference) can maintain flexibility and performance.

The Court has construed the following terms relevant to the instant motion:

• capabilities of the at least one client: "client parameters relating to resources available to the client, including the client's display bit-depth, bandwidth of the connection between the client and the conference server, processor speed of the client, and the amount of memory available to the client."

• client or server information: "the capabilities, requirements, demands and requests, or configurations and characteristics of the client or server. Information may include any data, facts, and measurements, or the display bit-depth, bandwidth of the connection between the client and the conference server, processor speed of the client, and the amount of memory available to each client."

• characteristics of [the provided] conferencing data: "qualities, properties, or attributes inherent in or ascribed to [the provided] conferencing data, including size, content, rate of transmission and reception."

• a conference server: "a computer or several networked computers running conference software and providing conference data to a client computer"

The parties have also agreed on the following terms:

• Web Browser: "an application executed by a computer to navigate among network resources."

• [Universal/Uniform] Resource Locator (URL) Associated with a Conference: "an identifier that specifies where the conference is located on a network."

• Conference Listing: "an identifier or address of a particular conference."

B. '489 Patent

The '489 patent is named "Negotiation And Validation Of A Client In A Video Conference" and it contains a single independent claim with four dependent claims,...