Case Filed: Jul 15, 2014
Origin Case: 4:13-cv-00159
Case Summary:
Linex Technologies, a Florida-based
developer of 3G/4G/LTE+ systems architecture and patent licensing company has
filed an appeal in the Federal Circuit concerning district court’s judgment
invalidating Linex’s patent claims. The suit was filed in Jan, 2013 against Delaware
corporations namely HP, Aruba Networks, Meru Networks and Ruckus Wireless, and Apple,
a California corporation. The suit was originally filed in Delaware District
Court and later transferred to California Northern District Court. The
patents-in-suit relate to the field of wireless data transmission and spread
spectrum technology.
Patents-in-Suit:
The suit revolves around the
patents:
- US6757322 entitled ‘Space diversity and coding, spread-spectrum antenna and method,’ issued on Jun 29, 2004
- RE42219 entitled ‘Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) spread spectrum system and method,’ issued on Mar 15, 2011
Both the patents expire[i]
on Nov 24, 2018 and are currently assigned[ii]
to Linex (source: MaxVal’s Assignment
Database).The ‘322 and ‘219 patents relate to antennas and more
particularly to reduce the effects of shadowing from a multipath environment
using space diversity and coding.
As in Complaint:
The suit alleged that defendants’
products operate using certain wireless communication methods that operate in a
“multiple input, multiple output” (“MIMO”) mode over a wireless local area
network, as defined in the IEEE 802.11n standard, which infringe the asserted
patents. Linex asked court to enjoin and obtain damages resulting from
defendants’ unauthorized manufacture of products, methods, processes, services,
and/or systems that infringe one or more claims.
District Court Judgment:
At some point during the proceeding,
the ‘322 patent was dropped by Linex and reissue patent RE43812 entitled
‘Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) spread-spectrum system and method’ was included.
The parties requested court to
construe a number of disputed claim terms and defendants also filed motions for
summary judgment on invalidity and non-infringement. Since the claim
construction and summary judgment hearing, a number of the asserted claims have
been dismissed with prejudice and defendants’ motion on invalidity in part and
non-infringement on the remaining valid claims were granted. The court order
concluded that:
- claims 107-109 of the ‘219 patent and claims 97-98 of the ‘812 patent are invalid
- claims 121, 131-132 of the ‘219 patent and claims 101-102 of the ‘812 patent are valid, but are not infringed by the accused devices.
Accordingly, in May 2014, court
entered its judgment favoring defendants HP, Apple, Aruba Networks, Meru
Networks and Ruckus Wireless. The defendants were then entitled to attorneys’
fees and other litigation expenses.
See 2014-1626
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[i] Expected expiration date. Patent
Term Estimator is a free web-based tool that automatically calculates patent
terms and expiration dates for U.S. utility patents.
[ii] MaxVal offers Patent Assignment
Alert service where subscribers receive email alerts when assignments relating
to target applications, patents or entities of interest are recorded.
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