United States Court of Appealsfor the Federal Circuit
__________________________ LASERDYNAMICS, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.QUANTA COMPUTER, INC.,
Defendant-Cross Appellant,
andQUANTA COMPUTER USA, INC.,QUANTA STORAGE, INC.,
AND
QUANTA STORAGE AMERICA, INC.
Defendants.
__________________________
2011-1440, -1470
__________________________
Appeals from the United States District Court for theEastern District of Texas in case no. 06-CV-0348, JudgeT. John Ward.
___________________________
Decided: August 30, 2012
___________________________
M
ATTHEW
C.
G
AUDET
, Duane Morris LLP, of Atlanta,Georgia, argued for plaintiff-appellant. On the brief wereR
OBERT
L.
B
YER
, of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, andG
REGORY
M.
L
UCK
, of Houston, Texas, and K
RISTINA
LASERDYNAMICS
v.
QUANTA COMPUTER
2
C
AGGIANO
, of Washington, DC. Of counsel was T
HOMAS
W.
S
ANKEY
, of Houston, Texas.T
ERRENCE
D
UANE
G
ARNETT
, Goodwin Procter, LLP, of Los Angeles, California, argued for defendant/cross-appellant. With him on the brief were V
INCENT
K.
Y
IP
,and P
ETER
J.
W
IED
.
__________________________
Before D
YK
, C
LEVENGER
, and R
EYNA
,
Circuit Judges
.R
EYNA
,
Circuit Judge
.These appeals come before us after two trials in thedistrict court—a first trial resolving the claims of patentinfringement and damages, and a second trial ordered bythe district court to retry the damages issues. The partiesraise various issues relating to the proper legal frame-work for evaluating reasonable royalty damages in thepatent infringement context. Also before us are questionsregarding implied license, patent exhaustion, infringe-ment, jury instructions, and the admissibility of a settle-ment agreement. For reasons explained in detail below,we
affirm-in-part
,
reverse-in-part
, and
remand
.I.
B
ACKGROUND
A. The Patented Technology and the OpticalDisc Drive IndustryLaserDynamics, Inc. (“LaserDynamics”) is the ownerof U.S. Patent No. 5,587,981 (“the ’981 Patent”), whichwas issued in 1996. The patent is directed to a method of optical disc discrimination that essentially enables anoptical disc drive (“ODD”) to automatically identify thetype of optical disc—e.g., a compact disc (“CD”) versus adigital video disc (“DVD”)—that is inserted into the ODD.Claim 3, which was asserted at trial, is representative:
LASERDYNAMICS
v.
QUANTA COMPUTER
3
3. An optical disk reading method comprisingthe steps of:processing an optical signal reflected from en-coded pits on an optical disk until total num-ber of data layers and pit configurationstandard of the optical disk is identified;collating the processed optical signal with anoptical disk standard data which is stored in amemory; andsettling modulation of servomechanism meansdependent upon the optical disk standard datawhich corresponds with the processed opticalsignal;(c) [sic] the servomechanism means including:a focusing lens servo to modulate positionof a focusing lens; anda tracking servo to modulate movement of a pickup.This automated process saves the user from having tomanually identify the kind of disc being inserted into theODD before the ODD can begin to read the data on thedisc. The patented technology is alleged to be particularlyuseful in laptop computers where portability, convenience,and efficiency are essential. At least as early as 2006, alaptop computer was not commercially viable unless itincluded an ODD that could automatically discriminatebetween optical discs. Yasuo Kamatani is the sole inventor of the ’981 Pat-ent. In 1998, viewing DVD technology as the next majordata and video format, Mr. Kamatani founded LaserDy-namics and assigned the ’981 Patent to the company. Mr.Kamatani is the sole employee of LaserDynamics, which
Search History:
Result 00 of 00
00 results for result for
p.
More From This User
Notes
Load more
