Vizio Inc v. Int'l Trade Comm'n

• Decision Date: 21 October 2010
• Docket Number: No. 2009-1386.,2009-1386.
• Citation: 605 F.3d 1330
• Parties: VIZIO, INC. and Amtran Technology Co., Ltd., Appellants,andTPV Technology Ltd., TPV International (USA), Inc., Top Victory Electronics (Taiwan) Co., Ltd., and Envision Peripherals, Inc., Appellants,v.INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMISSION, Appellee,andFunai Electric Co., Ltd. and Funai Corporation, Intervenors.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit

605 F.3d 1330

VIZIO, INC. and Amtran Technology Co., Ltd., Appellants,andTPV Technology Ltd., TPV International (USA), Inc., Top Victory Electronics (Taiwan) Co., Ltd., and Envision Peripherals, Inc., Appellants,v. INTERNATIONAL TRADE COMMISSION, Appellee,andFunai Electric Co., Ltd. and Funai Corporation, Intervenors.

No. 2009-1386.

United States Court of Appeals Federal Circuit.

May 26, 2010.

Rehearing and Rehearing En Banc Denied Oct. 21, 2010.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Gregory A. Castanias, Jones Day, of Washington, DC, argued for all appellants. With him on the brief for Vizio, Inc., et al were Eric S. Namrow and Israel Sasha Mayergoyz, of Chicago, IL. On the brief for TPV Technology Ltd., et al were Mark A. Samuels and Brian M. Berliner, O'Melveny & Myers LLP, of Los Angeles, CA; and Jonathan D. Hacker, of Washington, DC.

Daniel E. Valencia, Attorney, Office of the General Counsel, United States International Trade Commission, of Washington, DC, argued for appellee. With him on the brief were James M. Lyons, General Counsel, and Andrea C. Casson, Assistant General Counsel.

Karl J. Kramer, Morrison & Foerster LLP, of Palo Alto, CA, argued for intervenors. With him on the brief were G. Brian Busey and Teresa M. Summers, of Washington, DC; Harold J. McElhinny, of San Francisco, CA; and Mark W. Danis, of Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan.

Before MAYER, CLEVENGER, and DYK, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge DYK. Opinion dissenting-in-part filed by Circuit Judge CLEVENGER.

DYK, Circuit Judge.

Vizio, Inc. and Amtran Technology Company, Ltd. (collectively, “Vizio”), and TPV Technology, Ltd., TPV International, Inc., Top Victory Electronics Company, Ltd., and Envision Peripherals, Inc. (collectively, “TPV”) appeal from the final determination of the International Trade Commission (“Commission”) that the importation and sale of certain digital television products violated section 337 of the Tariff Act of 1930, as amended, 19 U.S.C. § 1337. The Commission issued a limited exclusion order and a cease and desist order. In the Matter of Certain Digital Televisions and Certain Products Containing Same and Methods of Using Same, Inv. No. 337-TA617 (U.S.I.T.C. Apr. 10, 2009) (“ Final Determination ”). The Commission's action was based on its finding that the accused products infringed claims 1, 5, and 23 of U.S. Patent No. 6,115,074 (the “'074 patent”), and that the '074 patent was not invalid.

We affirm the Commission's construction of the term “channel map information,” as well as the Commission's determination that the '074 patent is not invalid as anticipated or obvious. Furthermore, we affirm the Commission's construction of the term “identifying channel map information ... and assembling said identified information” in claims 1 and 23 as not precluding use of the Moving Picture Experts Group (“MPEG”) Program Map Table (“PMT”) and its determination that the '074 patent is infringed by the “legacy products.” However, we find the Commission erred in its conclusion that the claims do not require that the channel map information be capable of being used see In the Matter of Certain Digital Televisions and Certain Products Containing Same and Methods of Using Same, Inv. No. 337-TA-617, slip op. at 49 (U.S.I.T.C. Nov. 17, 2008) (“ Initial Determination ”), and we accordingly reverse the Commission's determination that the “work-around products” infringe.

Background

Funai Electric Company, Ltd. of Japan, and Funai Corporation of Rutherford, New Jersey (collectively, “Funai”) own the '074 patent, entitled “System for Forming and Processing Program Map Information Suitable for Terrestrial, Cable or Satellite Broadcast.” The '074 patent relates to apparatuses and methods by which television decoder devices identify and assemble specific “channel map” information carried in an MPEG compatible datastream in order to decode a digital television user's selected program in a digital transmission. '074 patent col.1 ll.11-13.

In the digital television era, television networks broadcast programs by transmitting encoded streams of digitized data. Unlike in analog transmission, digital transmission allows for the transmission of multiple programs over one physical transmission channel (“PTC”). For example, the 6 megahertz broadcast bandwidth previously allocated to a single analog broadcast channel, such as Channel 13, may now be used to carry many digital programs on different channels and subchannels (for example, channels 13-1, 13-2, 13-3, 13-4, and 13-5).

In the early 1990s, the MPEG set forth rules governing the compression and packetization of digital data for transmission and subsequent decoding. A “packet” is the basic unit of digital data transmission. Each television program has a set of video packets, audio packets, and data packets. Each of these sets of packets in a program constitutes an “elementary stream,” and the elementary streams of all the different programs on a broadcast channel are multiplexed together to form a single stream for transmission by the broadcaster-the MPEG transport stream. To achieve an MPEG-compliant digital broadcast, datastreams in the broadcast must carry information to identify and assemble the packets that constitute a program, so that the “decoder” can disaggregate the desired program information from the multiple programs transmitting on the same broadcast channel.

The MPEG-2 standard, developed by the MPEG and published in 1994, is the standard currently used for digital television broadcasts in the United States. The MPEG-2 standard defines a PMT, which is essentially a map instructing the decoder which packets need to be extracted for a given program. The PMT includes a number of different data fields, including: 1) the “program number,” a unique sixteen-digit number associated with a particular television program, 2) the elementary packet identifier (“elementary_PID”), which defines the packets that constitute an elementary stream, 3) a “stream_type” identifier that identifies the type of data carried by the packet (such as audio or video), and 4) the Program Clock Reference packet identifier (“PCR_PID”), which contains timing information that the decoder needs to coordinate the various content streams in time. A broadcaster sends the PMT scattered throughout the transport stream. The prior art systems operating under the MPEG-2 standard relied on the MPEG PMT for information critical to decoding a program.

In connection with the MPEG-2 standard, the American Television System Committee (“ATSC”) published several standards that added additional layers of information to facilitate decoding of the MPEG transport stream, namely the A/55 and A/56 standards. These standards were apparently not entirely satisfactory, and were eventually replaced by another standard, the A/65 standard.

The large quantity of information transmitted in digital broadcasts pursuant to the MPEG-2 standard and the use of the MPEG PMT for decoding resulted in a delay in the acquisition of a particular program. Receivers were forced to wait to receive the PMT data each time before the decoders could be configured to decode a program. This phenomenon is known as “channel latency.” The A/55 and A/56 standards were not addressed to this problem. The inventors of the '074 patent sought to address the problem by developing a system that identified and assembled a “channel map” that replicated from the MPEG PMT all of the information necessary to identify and acquire a program being transmitted on a selected subchannel. '074 patent, Abstract. By requiring the replication and storage of this information instead of waiting to receive the MPEG PMT each time as it appeared in the datastream, “the time required by [the] decoder ... to identify and acquire a program being transmitted on [a] selected sub-channel ... is advantageously reduced.” Id. col.7 ll.40-42.

At the suggestion of the lead inventor of the '074 patent and after the '074 provisional patent application was filed, the ATSC adopted the A/65 Standard, which incorporated the requirement of a channel map, or Virtual Channel Table (“VCT”), the replicated channel map being a central feature of the '074 patent. That standard replicates the MPEG program number, PCR_PID, stream types, and elementary PIDs that are carried in the MPEG PMT. The A/65 Standard requires that broadcast signals carry a VCT. The Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) mandated that, effective May 29, 2008, transmission of digital broadcast television signals comply with the ATSC A/65 standard. 47 C.F.R. § 73.682(d). Furthermore, beginning on March 1, 2007, all digital televisions (“DTVs”) sold in the United States must be capable of receiving broadcasts compliant with the ATSC A/65 Standard. See 47 C.F.R. § 15.117(a), (b), (h), (i).

The asserted claims of the '074 patent relate to the replication of this “channel map information.” Claim 1 provides:

1. Apparatus for decoding a datastream of MPEG compatible packetized program information containing program map information to provide decoded program data, comprising:

means for identifying channel map information conveyed within said packetized program information; and

means for assembling said identified information to form a channel map for identifying said individual packetized datastreams constituting said program, wherein said channel map information replicates information

conveyed in said MPEG compatible program map information and said replicated information associates a broadcast channel with packet identifiers used to identify individual packetized datastreams that constitute a program transmitted on said broadcast channel.

'074 patent col.11 ll.27-42. Claim 23 recites “[a] method for decoding MPEG compatible packetized program information,” comprising the steps of “identifying channel map information” and “assembling said identified information to form channel map suitable for use in identifying said individual packetized...