Rembrandt Soc. Media, LP v. Facebook, Inc.
| Citation | 22 F.Supp.3d 585 |
| Decision Date | 03 December 2013 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 1:13–cv–158. |
| Parties | REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP, Plaintiff, v. FACEBOOK, INC., Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Virginia |
REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP, Plaintiff
v.
FACEBOOK, INC., Defendant.
Case No. 1:13–cv–158.
United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, Alexandria Division.
Signed Dec. 3, 2013.
Stephen Richard Smith, Jonathan Garwood Graves, Phillip Edward Morton, Cooley LLP, Reston, VA, for Plaintiff.
Ahmed Jamal Davis, Daniel Robert Gopenko, Richard Alex Sterba, Ruffin B. Cordell, Fish & Richardson, Washington, DC, for Defendant.
MEMORANDUM OPINION
T.S. ELLIS, III, District Judge.
At issue in this patent infringement suit is whether the opinion of plaintiff's expert, James Malackowski, satisfies the requirements of Rule 702, Fed.R.Evid., and Daubert.1 For the reasons that follow, plaintiff's proffered expert testimony on damages fails to qualify as reliable expert testimony under Rule 702 and Daubert and must be excluded.
I.
Plaintiff, Rembrandt Social Media, LP (“Rembrandt”), a non-producing Virginia limited partnership with its principal place of business in Pennsylvania, is the owner by assignment of the two patents at issue: U.S. Patent No. 6,415,316 (“the '316 patent”) and U.S. Patent No. 6,289,362 (“the '362 patent”).2 Rembrandt alleges that defendant, Facebook, Inc. (“Facebook”), a Delaware corporation with its headquarters in California,3 infringed both patents by the use of its widely-used Facebook website.
The '316 Patent
The '316 patent, issued July 2, 2002, is entitled “Method and Apparatus for Implementing a Web Page Diary.” In the words of the patent's abstract, the ' 316 patent describes a “method and apparatus to create a ‘diary’ containing multimedia references to contents of websites.” Rembrandt alleges Facebook directly infringes claim 4 of the '316 patent, which depends from claim 1, and claims 20 and 26, both of which depend from claim 17.
Claim 1 of the '316 patent describes a method for organizing information and displaying this information on the diary page.4 In essence, the method of claim 1
involves a server sending a diary program to the user's web browser, along with content data, a page design specifying the presentation of the content data, and configuration information for controlling the way in which the diary page will be displayed, including privacy level information—namely to whom the diary page will be displayed. Once in the user's system, the diary program generates and assembles the cohesive diary page by dynamically combining the content data received from the server with the web page design, also received from the server, according to the configuration information. The cohesive diary page thus assembled is then displayed by the diary program in the user's web browser in a manner consistent with the privacy level information. Claim 4, the allegedly infringed claim, depends from claim 1 and simply adds that “[t]he new diary information is for changing content of the diary page without changing a general appearance of the diary page.”
Allegedly infringed claims 205 and 266 of the '316 patent are dependent from claim 17, which describes an apparatus, i.e., a computer software program, that is used essentially to accomplish claims 1 and 20.7
The '362 Patent
The '362 patent, entitled “System and Method for Generating, Transferring, and Using an Annotated Universal Address,” describes a method and computer program product for displaying content on a web page. Rembrandt asserts that Facebook infringes claims 8,8 20,9 and 2110 of
the '362 patent. Claim 8 is a dependent claim that depends from independent claim 1,11 and claims 20 and 21 are independent claims. Claims 1 and 20 are substantially similar and are essentially directed at a method and computer program product, respectively, for displaying a content object through a page definition generated by an “applet,” or computer program. The '362 patent, similar to the '316 patent, describes a method of using a computer program, running on the user's own browser, that generates a complete web page for that user, based on content, page definitions, and presentation information sent from the third-party server. More particularly, the method and computer program may be described as follows: first, the user sends a request for access to some “object” of content. In response to that request, a program identifies the “annotated universal address” (AUA) for the location of that content object, identifies how that content object should be presented on the page (presentation context), and sends to the client the AUA, presentation context, and applet. The “applet” at issue in the '362 patent, as described by Rembrandt's expert, Dr. Jennifer Golbeck, is the same software as the “diary program”
in the '316 patent. Accordingly, the applet, like the diary program, dynamically combines data with a page design, both received from the server, according to a certain presentation context.
The Facebook Website
The putatively infringing website, Facebook, is a free social networking service delivered through a number of platforms, including its web address, < http://www.facebook.com>. The Facebook website runs in the user's web browser. The Facebook website includes a number of web pages allowing Facebook's users to share information with each other. For example, when a user logs into Facebook, he or she sees the “News Feed” web page, introduced in 2006, which displays recent activities that have occurred on Facebook and may be relevant or interesting to the viewing user. Such activities are called “stories” and may include the recent activity of the user's friends—when that user's friends share photos or video, recommend third party web pages, or engage in other activities. Each Facebook user also has a “Timeline,” which shows basic information about that particular user, along with actions taken by or directed toward that user—including, for example, photos and video uploaded by that user or webpages shared with that user by the user's friends. Timeline, introduced in 2011, was preceded by a web page called “The Wall,” which provided a similar functionality. Facebook allows users to upload, organize, and store photos and video using a functionality called “Photo/Video Sharing,” which can be viewed by other users based on the privacy controls set by the user who uploaded the photos or video. Finally, Facebook allows users to create pages for businesses (“Pages”), as well as pages for groups (“Groups”) relating to common associations or interests.
In 2009, Facebook introduced two new features to its website: BigPipe and Audience Symbol. Rembrandt's expert, Dr. Golbeck, admitted that the alleged infringement in this case is attributable to the introduction of BigPipe and Audience Symbol in 2009, and that Facebook does not infringe without BigPipe and Audience Symbol.
BigPipe, introduced in Fall 2009, is a web page acceleration and optimization computer program developed by Facebook to increase the speed at which certain web pages are delivered from Facebook's servers to the user's web browser. BigPipe takes a web page and divides it into portions known as “pagelets” using a certain piece of computer code12 to specify each pagelet. Each pagelet represents a portion of a web page on Facebook. For each pagelet, Facebook's server generates code that describes the format of the pagelet, and sends that code over the internet to the user's web browser. Facebook's server sends the BigPipe program to the user's computer, where it runs in the user's web browser. BigPipe first ensures that certain necessary resources are loaded, and then passes the pagelet code from Facebook's server to the user's web browser, where the pagelet is processed and displayed by the user's web browser. This is accomplished with a single command, which passes the pagelet code obtained from the server to the browser. The user's browser then downloads and processes any additional files needed to display the pagelet fully so that it may display the pagelet for the user. This process is repeated for each pagelet, until the entire web page is displayed in the user's web browser. On average, BigPipe allows webpages to be delivered to users one second faster than Facebook's earlier webpage
delivery method. Rembrandt alleges that this technology—the BigPipe script—is the alleged “diary program” recited in claim 1 of the '316 patent, and that BigPipe performs the assembly step of “assembling the cohesive diary page by dynamically combining the content data and the page design” recited in claim 17 of that patent.
Audience Symbol, introduced in June 2009, is a small icon displayed next to stories on various webpages on Facebook's website. The symbol signifies the third-party users, or “audience,” allowed to view a particular story. Rembrandt alleges that display of Audience Symbol violates both the '316 and ' 362 patents.
Rembrandt alleges that Facebook...
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Rembrandt Soc. Media, LP v. Facebook, Inc., Case No. 1:13–cv–158.
...22 F.Supp.3d 585REMBRANDT SOCIAL MEDIA, LP, Plaintiff,v.FACEBOOK, INC., Defendant.Case No. 1:13–cv–158.United States District Court, E.D. Virginia, Alexandria Division.Signed Dec. 3, Motion granted. [22 F.Supp.3d 587] Stephen Richard Smith, Jonathan Garwood Graves, Phillip Edward Morton, Co......