Free Claim Construction Answering Brief - District Court of Delaware - Delaware

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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF DELAWARE ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) )

CISCO SYSTEMS, INC. and CISCO TECHNOLOGY, INC., Plaintiffs, v. TELCORDIA TECHNOLOGIES, INC., Defendant.

C.A. No. 07-113-GMS

DEFENDANT TELCORDIA'S ANSWERING BRIEF IN SUPPORT OF ITS PROPOSED CLAIM CONSTRUCTIONS FOR U.S. PATENT NO. 5,142,622

Of Counsel: Vincent P. Kovalick Christopher T. Blackford FINNEGAN, HENDERSON, FARABOW, GARRETT & DUNNER, L.L.P. 901 New York Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001 (202) 408-4000 Dated: May 12, 2008

ASHBY & GEDDES Steven J. Balick (I.D. #2114) John G. Day (I.D. #2403) Tiffany Geyer Lydon (I.D. #3950) 500 Delaware Avenue, 8th Floor P.O. Box 1150 Wilmington, Delaware 19899 (302) 654-1888 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Attorneys for Defendant Telcordia Technologies, Inc.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. II.

INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 CLAIM TERM IN DISPUTE............................................................................................. 1 1. Construction of "Socket" .............................................................................1

III.

CONCLUSION................................................................................................................... 4

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I.

INTRODUCTION Defendant Telcordia Technologies, Inc. ("Telcordia") hereby submits its answering claim

construction brief in reply to Plaintiffs Cisco Systems, Inc.'s and Cisco Technology, Inc.'s (collectively, "Cisco") opening claim construction brief.1 II. CLAIM TERM IN DISPUTE 1. Construction of "Socket"

"Socket" The `622 Patent - Asserted Claim 7 Telcordia's Construction Cisco's Construction an application program interface (API) that was developed for the Berkeley version of AT&T's UNIX operating system for interconnecting applications running on data processing systems in a network. It is an object that identifies a communication end point in a network, can be connected to other sockets, and hides the protocol of the network architecture beneath a lower layer. an object that identifies a communication end point in a network.

Telcordia's opening claim construction brief identified Cisco's proposed construction for the claim term "socket" as follows: "an application program interface (API) for interconnecting applications running on data processing systems in a network. It is an object that identifies a communication end point in a network, can be connected to other sockets, and hides the protocol of the network architecture beneath a lower layer." This was Cisco's last proposed construction. Cisco has apparently changed its position. Contrary to what Cisco contends, it is Telcordia's construction, not Cisco's, that adopts the "precise meaning" of the claim term "socket." The real issue here is whether the claim term
Telcordia notes that in Exhibit 2 of Cisco's Opening Claim Construction Brief, the claim term "generic instruction" is inaccurately identified as being agreed to by the parties to mean "an instruction applicable to the group of elements." The correct construction that the parties agreed to is "an instruction applicable to the groups of elements."
1

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"socket" should be given the exact meaning expressly recited in the specification and declared by the patentee during the prosecution of the `622 Patent to overcome a patent examiner's rejections. Telcordia's proposed construction does exactly that. It mirrors that precise meaning defined by the patentee:

See, e.g., the `622 Patent, at 2:23-37; U.S. Patent Application No. 304,696, at 3-4 (TCORDEL0000040-41) (Ex. A). Cisco, on the other hand, ignores the specification and the prosecution history. Specifically, during prosecution, the patentee reemphasized the "precise meaning" for the claim term "socket" to overcome rejections in an Office Action:

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Amendment filed June 29, 1990, at 11 (emphasis added) (attached as Exhibit C to Telcordia's opening claim construction brief). What the patentee intended the claim term "socket" to mean is crystal clear. Accordingly, Telcordia's proposed construction for "socket" mirrors the language expressly recited in the specification and declared by the patentee during prosecution. That, of course, is precisely what the law requires. See, e.g., Springs Window Fashions LP v. Nova Indus., L.P., 323 F.3d 989, 995 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (stating that "[t]he public notice function of a patent and its prosecution history requires that a patentee be held to what he declares during the prosecution of his patent."); Cook v. Biotech Inc. v. Acell, Inc., 460 F.3d 1365, 1374 (Fed. cir. 2006) (quoting Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc), cert. denied, 126 S.Ct. 1332 (2006) ("[T]he specification may reveal a special definition given to a claim term by the patentee that differs from the meaning it would otherwise possess. In such cases, the inventor's lexicography governs.")). Try as it may, Cisco cannot walk away from the express and clear statements in the patent and prosecution history that disavow the broad claim scope that Cisco now seeks in litigation.
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Cisco's only apparent criticism of Telcordia's construction is that the Berkeley version of AT&T's Unix is a preferred embodiment. However, the Berkeley version of AT&T's Unix is not a preferred embodiment, it is the only embodiment. Indeed, the "Background of the

Invention" and the "Summary of the Invention" each characterize sockets as belonging to operating systems based upon the Berkeley version of AT&T's Unix without regard to a preferred embodiment. The `622 Patent, at 2:23-27 and 3:48-52. Even Cisco correctly points out that persons of skill in the art may "confine their definitions of terms to exact representations depicted in the embodiments." Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc), cert. denied, 126 S.Ct. 1332 (2006). That is precisely what happened here. The patentee clearly articulated a definition of the claim term socket, delineated the scope of that term as having the "precise meaning" defined in the specification, and then relied on that definition to overcome an examiner's rejection. Where the patentee exhibits such behavior, "the inventor's intention, as expressed in the specification, is regarded as dispositive." Id. at 1316.

III.

CONCLUSION For the reasons discussed above, Telcordia respectfully submits that the Court should

adopt its construction for the claim term "socket."

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ASHBY & GEDDES /s/ Steven J. Balick Steven J. Balick (I.D. #2114) John G. Day (I.D. #2403) Tiffany Geyer Lydon (I.D. #3950) 500 Delaware Avenue, 8th Floor P.O. Box 1150 Wilmington, Delaware 19899 (302) 654-1888 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Attorneys for Defendant Telcordia Technologies, Inc.

Of Counsel: Vincent P. Kovalick Christopher T. Blackford FINNEGAN, HENDERSON, FARABOW, GARRETT & DUNNER, L.L.P. 901 New York Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20001 (202) 408-4000 Dated: May 12, 2008

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EXHIBIT A (Patent Application No. 304696 dated January 31, 1989)

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