Judge Sue L. Robinson recently considered various motions for summary judgment, motions to strike and exclude testimony, and issued claim constructions of the terms of the patents-in-suit (Patent Nos. 6,874,049, 6,708,259, and 6,647,450). Cradle IP, LLC v. Texas Instruments, Inc., C.A. No. 11-1254 (D. Del. Nov. 20, 2013).
Before analyzing the eight motions before the Court, Judge Robinson noted that to determine summary judgment the court must confirm “the parties have cited evidence in support of their arguments”; and that “the evidence demonstrates the proposition for which it is cited.” Id. at 11-12. In that respect, Judge Robinson noted that the “the parties could not have been less helpful to the court.” The specific issues with the parties’ record cites included:
[T]he parties (and their experts) cited to documents by their Bates-stamp numbers, with no indicia of their location in the record. Even when the parties were kind enough to locate the document in question by an exhibit number, it was often difficult to discern which of the volumes containing identical exhibit numbers was actually referenced. To add insult to injury, the parties organized the appendices so that the exhibits were not necessarily included in numerical order because, e.g., one exhibit had to be sealed. In sum, it was a rare occurrence that a brief cited evidence by an exhibit number that was clearly identified by the appendix in which it resided.
Id. at 12.
Turning to the motions to strike and exclude expert testimony, Judge Robinson granted Texas Instrument’s motion striking “new theories” from Cradle IP’s expert’s declarations. Id. at 13. “As far as the court can tell, the declaration is longer than his two expert reports combined, and primarily cites to itself as authority.” Id. Judge Robinson also granted Texas Instrument’s motion to strike that related to a third party declaration not vetted in discovery. Id. Judge Robinson denied the remaining motions to strike that related to supplemental expert reports. Id. at 14. “[T]he court has neither the time nor the resources – nor even the record – to recreate the parties’ tortuous litigation strategies insofar as determining whether plaintiff had cause to file a supplemental report in the first instance and whether it ventured into new theories which demanded a response by defendant in the second instance.” Id. Judge Robinson also denied Texas Instrument’s motion to exclude Cradle IP’s expert on secondary considerations, finding that Texas Instrument’s complaints went to the weight of the evidence. Id. Judge Robinson did, however, grant Cradle IP’s motion to strike an expert declaration because it contained disclosures that had not been vetted through discovery. Id.
Turning to the summary judgment motions, Judge Robinson granted-in-part Texas Instrument’s motions for summary judgment of non-infringement and denied its motion for summary judgment of invalidity. Regarding the ‘049 patent, Judge Robinson granted Texas Instrument’s motion that “that Cradle has not shown that Tl has made, used, sold, or offered to sell the ‘entire patented invention’ or that any of its customers have employed the ‘entire patented invention in the required configuration set forth in the apparatus claims.'” Id. at 22-23. Judge Robinson found that there was “no evidence to show that Tl or its customers used the apparatus in combined mode. To the contrary, the only evidence provided shows that the software needed for the apparatus to operate in combined mode was not even developed.” Id. at 24. Judge Robinson also granted Texas Instrument’s motion as to the method claim 6, that Cradle IP “failed to provide evidence to show that either TI or its customers have actually performed ‘all of the steps of the claimed method.'” Id. at 25. Regarding the ‘259 patent, Judge Robinson granted Texas Instrument’s motion that Cradle IP provided no evidence of direct infringement of the method claims, finding that “at best” Cradle IP has shown that the products are capable of operating in an infringing manner, rather than evidence of use. Id. at 31. Regarding the ‘450 patent, Judge Robinson granted Texas Instrument’s motion. The Court found that “Cradle fail[ed] to identify evidence to support a finding of a genuine issue of material fact, instead pointing only to a conclusory opinion, unsupported by evidence, in [its expert’s] declaration.” Id. at 40.
Judge Robinson also construed the following claim terms of the patents-in-suit:
“A system bus that allows only one bus transaction in any one clock cycle”
“Any processor requesting access to the shared resource”
“The shared resource is available/unavailable for access”
“The shared resource has just been made available for
access”
“cell”
“Idle Memory Transfer Controller”
“Command FIFO”
“Split transaction global bus”
“Acknowledgment of command receipt”
“Releasing the split transaction global bus”
Cradle IP, LLC v. Texas Instruments, Inc., C.A. No. 11-1254 (D. Del. Nov. 20, 2013)
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