DirecTV and Cox Communications secured partial dismissal of an infringement action by Entropic Communications LLC yesterday when allegedly standard essential patents covering clock synchronization, measuring delay, formatting data packets and other technologies were declared ineligible under Section 101 of the Patent Act. Reliance by Entropic on the “massive” prosecution history of the patents-in-suit carried no weight with the court, because the patentee's back-and-forth with an examiner dealt primarily with potential rejections under Sections 102 and 103 of the statute. Thus far, cable provider-defendants in the case have successfully defeated half of the 12 patents asserted by Entropic on eligibility grounds.
Sprawling litigation by Entropic Communications LLC against several cable providers will be trimmed, amid findings yesterday by a California judge that a subset of patents asserted by the nonpracticing entity against DirecTV and Cox Communications are ineligible for patenting under Section 101 of the Patent Act.Judge John W. Holcomb of the Central District of California declared US Patent Nos. 8,363,681 and 8,085,802 — both of which DirecTV stands accused of infringing — ineligible (see here). Cox, meanwhile, secured dismissal (see here) on eligibility grounds of US Patent Nos. 9,838,213 and 10,432,422.
Entropic asserts 12 patents in all against DirecTV and Cox in its 2023 complaint over technology for repurposing coaxial cables for improvements to high speed data networks.
The patents are incorporated into the MultiMedia over Coax Alliance, or MoCA, standard, which Entropic says DirecTV and Cox practice via various MoCA-compliant instrumentalities.
The campaign isn't limited to DirecTV and Cox, however. Also named as defendants in the litigation are non-movants DISH Network and its affiliates along with AT&T Services.
Entropic, in turn, has been hit with counterclaims accusing it and chipmaker MaxLinear, who sold the patents in suit to Entropic's predecessor Entropic Communications Inc., of breach of contract. The defendants argue they are entitled to license the surviving patents on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms pursuant to the MoCA IPR policy, of which they claim to be third-party beneficiaries.
Holcomb’s order characterized ‘422 and ‘213 patents “at a high level” as covering “quality-of-service solutions that coordinate network nodes to provide accessible and reliable service to home users while keeping power costs in check.”
A disclosed “Layer 2 Management Entity,” or L2ME, architecture provides the framework in both patents for messaging between nodes, and is connected to a Quality of Service, or QoS manager which “allows data traffic depending upon the nodes’ indicated availability,” Holcomb explained.
But “sending and receiving data and allocating resources based upon that data” is an abstract idea, Holcomb said. Moreover, he ruled, that the same abstract idea “implemented in a Network Coordinator (NC) node” does not go far enough to render the claims patent-eligible at step two of the Alice v. CLS Bank inquiry. "First,” Holcomb ruled, “the NC itself is not unconventional.”
“Entropic acknowledges that the NC is just like any of the other peer nodes in the network, except that it is the coordinator. A node is a generic network component. Accordingly, the NC cannot transform this claim into something more than an abstract idea,” he added, granting Cox’s request to dismiss Entropic’s allegations of infringement as they relate to the ‘422 and ‘213 patents.
Similarly, he declared the “ranging-based synchronization” of clocks disclosed in the ‘681 patent an abstract idea and said that “nodes, communication network, and functional, logical, or physical partitioning” are insufficiently inventive, because they can be carried out by generic computer components.
“The specification explains the benefit of a specific type of ranging, used to reduce the interframe gap in the MoCA context, but, again, that specificity is not carried into the claims. The Amended Complaint broadly concludes that the inventions of the ‘681 Patent improve efficiency over conventional coaxial networks, but it does not tie the purported improvements to any specific claim elements,” he added.
Surviving DirecTV’s challenge yesterday, for now, are Entropic’s US Patent Nos. 8,621,539 and 7,889,759. While both could still be held ineligible, Holcomb said disputes over the construction of claim terms like “optimizing” and “parameters” render the motion to dismissal premature.
The judge rejected, outright, DirecTV’s claim US Patent No. 7,295,518 patent runs afoul of Section 101, disagreeing with the defendant that “transmitting and analyzing information” and “determining a bit loading scheme” are abstract ideas. Instead, Holcomb was persuaded by Entropic’s position that the ‘518 patent recites “a technological improvement because it facilitates device-to-device communication — something that was not possible in conventional coaxial networks.”
Even then, however, the judge signaled potential problems lie ahead for Entropic.
While “bit loading appears to refer to specific techniques known in the art, which provide an improvement in the coaxial network context,” Holcomb wrote, “based upon the disclosures, it potentially appears that the applicant did not invent that improvement.”
“Still, novelty and inventorship are both fact intensive inquiries more appropriately resolved on a developed record,” he concluded.
In September 2023, two other Entropic-asserted patents — Nos. 10,257,566 and 8,228,910 — were removed from the suit by Holcomb in response to a motion for judgment on the pleadings under Section 101 by DISH.
In all, following yesterday's decisions, half of the 12 patents alleged by Entropic to be infringed have been declared ineligible.
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