F5 Networks Inc v. A10 Networks, Inc., No. 2:2010cv00654 - Document 133 (W.D. Wash. 2011)
Court Description: ORDER denying 123 Motion for Reconsideration, signed by Judge Marsha J. Pechman.(SC)
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F5 Networks Inc v. A10 Networks, Inc. Doc. 133 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT WESTERN DISTRICT OF WASHINGTON AT SEATTLE 8 9 10 F5 NETWORKS INC, Plaintiff, 11 12 13 14 CASE NO. C10-654 MJP ORDER ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION v. A10 NETWORKS, INC., Defendant. 15 16 The Court, having received and reviewed: 17 1. Plaintiff F5 Networks Inc.’s Motion for Reconsideration of Court’s Construction of 18 Claim Term 4 (Dkt. No. 123) 19 2. A10 Networks Inc.’s Response to Plaintiff F5 Networks Inc.’s Motion for 20 Reconsideration of Court’s Construction of Claim Term 4 (Dkt. No. 130) 21 and all attached declarations and exhibits, makes the following ruling: 22 IT IS ORDERED that the motion is DENIED. 23 24 ORDER ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION1 Dockets.Justia.com 1 Background The Court’s Order on Claim Construction, Part 1 (Dkt. No. 119), construed Claim Term 4 2 3 (“source[/destination] address”) as: 4 A number or series of numbers that identifies one network device as being the source[/destination] of the packet, distinguishing it from the other network sources on the computer network. 5 6 Discussion/Analysis 7 Plaintiff requests reconsideration of that construction on several grounds: 8 1. 9 The Court’s construction excludes express examples of source and destination addresses given in the claims and specifications. 10 The examples cited by Plaintiff fall into two categories. Claims 7, 15, and 25 of 11 the ‘996 Patent and Claim 5 of the ‘427 Patent recite 12 13 14 [W]herein each address includes at least one of a media access control [MAC] address, a virtual local area network (VLAN) identifier, a transmission control protocol (TCP) port, a user datagram protocol (UDP) port, an internet protocol (IP) address, physical port identifier, and a physical port. 15 First, the Court notes that to say that an address “includes at least one of” the items listed 16 is not the same thing as saying that any one of the items on its own is an address. As 17 Defendant puts it, the use of the phrase “includes” signifies that “the listed items are 18 necessarily a part of the claimed ‘address[es]’; it does not indicate that any one of these 19 items, alone, is sufficient to form an ‘address.’” Def Brief, p. 9 (emphasis in original). 20 Second, there is case law holding that, when the phrase “at least one of” is 21 followed by a list of items using “and,” the series is conjunctive: i.e., at least one of each 22 23 24 ORDER ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION2 1 of the items in the list must be present. Superguide Corp. v. DirecTV Enterprises, Inc. 2 358 F.3d 870, 886 (Fed. Cir. 2004). This does not support Plaintiff’s argument.1 3 4 Plaintiff points to one other example of specification language which it claims is excluded by the Court’s construction: 5 A source or destination address may be an IP address, a port address, such as UDP or TCP, VLAN ID, physical port identifier, physical port, or some combination thereof. Alternatively, a source or destination address may be some other layer 1-7 address. (‘996 Patent at 16:6-10 and ‘427 Patent at 14:31-36.) 6 7 8 Plaintiff argues that the specifications define the terms “UDP,” “TCP,” “VLAN ID,” 9 “physical port identifier,” and “physical port” as examples of “a source or destination 10 address” (and then argues that the Court’s construction is in error because none of these 11 items, on its own, distinguishes one network device from another). The Court disagrees 12 with F5’s characterization of these terms and finds it inconsistent with the specification 13 language: the Court reads “such as” as modifying “a port address” (in other words, the 14 terms listed after “such as” are included as types of “port addresses”); there is no other 15 way to read “such as” in the context of this sentence. With that understanding, the 16 specification reads as “A source or destination address may be an IP address, one of any 17 number of different kinds of port addresses, or some combination of these.” Further, the Court is satisfied that the terms (UDP, TCP, etc.) which appear in the 18 19 above specifications, when considered as types of “port addresses,” all incorporate the 20 concept of being conjoined to an IP address in order to qualify as “addresses:” 21 22 23 1 This may explain why, at the conclusion of its briefing, Plaintiff attempts to rewrite the language of the 24 claim in their reconsideration brief, substituting “or” for “and” in the “at least one of” list. Pltf Brief, p. 10. ORDER ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION3 1 TCP (“transmission control protocol”): Defendant cites to the “TCP 2 Specification (1981),” the document published by the Defense Advanced 3 Research Projects Agency (“DARPA,”which the Court considers an authoritative 4 source), to establish that in order “[t]o provide for unique addresses within each 5 TCP, we concatenate an internet address identifying the TCP with a port identifier 6 to create a socket which will be unique throughout all networks connected 7 together.” Def. Ex. D, p. 3. 8 9 published by DARPA) states that the term “Destination Port” “has a meaning 10 11 UDP (“user datagram protocol”): The “UDP Specification (1980)” (also within the context of a particular internet destination address.” Def. Ex. E, p. 2. VLAN (“virtual local area network”) identifier: the specifications in both 12 patents refer to “VLAN addressing” and “the VLAN standard.” ‘996 Patent, 13 20:31-42; ‘427 Patent 18:50-55. The “IEEE [Institute of Electrical and 14 Electronics Engineers, Inc.] Standards for Local and Metropolitan Area 15 Networks: Virtual Bridge Local Area Networks” (Dec. 1998) clearly draw a 16 distinction between “port numbers” (“the number of the bridge port”) and “port 17 addresses” (“the specific MAC Address of the individual MAC entity associated 18 with the Port”). Def. Ex. N, p. 3. A “port address” utilizing a “VLAN identifier” 19 would be more than simply a port number alone. 20 Physical port identifier/physical port: Again, consistent with the example cited 21 in the “VLAN Standard” and the Court’s reasoning in the original order, a “port 22 address, such as… a physical port identifier and a physical port” would include 23 both the port number and network address such as a MAC or IP address. 24 ORDER ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION4 1 Defendant’s expert confirms that a person of ordinary skill in the art would 2 understand a “port address” to include both these elements. Dkt. No. 100-1 at ¶ 3 72. 4 Some other layer 1-7 address: Plaintiff points out that the Layer 4 address is the 5 port number, but the question is “What would a person of ordinary skill in the art 6 at the time of the patent filing understand ‘Layer 4 address’ to mean?” Defendant 7 produces documentation from “HTTP: The Definitive Guide” (Sept. 2002) which 8 states that “[e]ach packet has a layer-4 address, consisting of the source and 9 destination IP address and TCP port numbers.” Def. Ex. I, p. 5 (emphasis 10 supplied). The Court is satisfied that a “Layer 4 address” would be understood to 11 mean a combination of IP address and port number. 12 2. “Port number” and “port address” are synonymous 13 Plaintiff first attacks the Court’s underlying rationale that the address must be 14 something that is sufficient to distinguish network devices2 by reiterating its argument 15 that many of the patents’ examples of source and destination addresses are not sufficient 16 to distinguish network devices from one another. This argument has been addressed 17 supra – since the Court is construing “port address” to include “IP address and port 18 number” and rejecting the contention that “port number” and “port address” are the same 19 thing, Plaintiff cannot make this argument persuasively. And none of its examples, as 20 reviewed and analyzed above, support the contrary argument. 21 22 2 In its briefing, F5 adds the additional qualifier of “sufficient to send a packet to its ultimate destination” 23 (Pltf Brief, p. 6; emphasis supplied) but that is not what the Court’s construction says – the Court has construed the term to require “a number or series of numbers that identifies one network device… distinguishing it from the other 24 network sources…” ORDER ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION5 1 2 Second, Plaintiff resubmits its “extrinsic evidence” from the original claim 3 construction briefing to demonstrate that persons of ordinary skill in the art would 4 understand “port number” and “port address” to be interchangeable terms. The Court 5 finds F5’s extrinsic evidence to be weak – articles from Wikipedia (where information is 6 unattributed and can be added by anyone), a blog posting from “Errata Security” by an 7 uncredentialed author, and an “eHow” article by an author with a BA in journalism and 8 English (Plaintiff Brief, Exs. 1-3) are not authoritative or persuasive sources. 9 Furthermore, all the articles were published after the filing of these patents and are 10 therefore immaterial for purposes of evaluating the understanding of a person of ordinary 11 skill in the art at the time of filing. 12 13 Conclusion 14 Plaintiff has failed to persuade the Court that the construction of Claim Term 4 was the 15 result of either factual or legal error. F5’s motion for reconsideration is DENIED. 16 17 The clerk is ordered to provide copies of this order to all counsel. 18 Dated August 11, 2011. 19 21 A 22 Marsha J. Pechman United States District Judge 20 23 24 ORDER ON MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION6
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