United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
__________________________
UNILOC USA, INC. AND UNILOC SINGAPORE
PRIVATE LIMITED,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
MICROSOFT CORPORATION,
Defendant-Cross Appellant.
孙权劝学原文翻译__________________________
2010-1035, -1055
__________________________当幸福来敲门经典台词
Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island in Ca No. 03-CV-0440, Judge William E. Smith.
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Decided: January 4, 2011
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president huD ONALD R.D UNNER, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett and Dunner, LLP, of Washington, DC, argued for plaintiff-appellant. With him on the brief were D ON O.
B URLEY; E RIK R.P UKNYS and A ARON J.
C APRON, of Palo Alto, California. Of counl on the brief were P AUL J.
H AYES and D EAN G.B OSTOCK, Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky & Popeo PC, of Boston, Massachutts
UNILOC USA v. MICROSOFT 2
F RANK E.S CHERKENBACH, Fish and Richardson P.C., of Boston, Massachutts, argued for defendant-cross appellant. With him on the brief were K URT L.
G LITZENSTEIN; J OHN W.T HORNBURGH, of San Diego, California and L AURA R.B RADEN, of Washington, DC.
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Before R ADER, Chief Judge, L INN and M OORE, Circuit
Judges.
L INN, Circuit Judge.
Uniloc USA, Inc. and Uniloc Singapore Private Lim-ited (collectively, “Uniloc”) appeal from the decision of the United States District Court for the District of Rhode Island granting Microsoft Corporation’s (“Microsoft”) motion for judgment as a matter of law (“JMOL”) of non-infringement and no willful infringement of asrted claims of Uniloc’s U.S. Patent No. 5,490,216 (“’216 pat-ent”), and, in the alternative, granting a new trial on infringement and willfulness. Uniloc USA, Inc. v. Micro-soft Corp., 640 F. Supp. 2d 150 (D.R.I. Sept. 29, 2009) (“Uniloc II”). Uniloc also appeals the district court’
s alternative grant of a new trial on damages. Microsoft cross-appeals the district court’s denial of its motion for JMOL of invalidity of the ’216 patent. Id. at 179-83.
Becau the jury’s verdict on infringement was sup-ported by substantial evidence, this court revers the district court’s grant of JMOL of non-infringement; this court also revers the district court’s alternative grant of a new trial on infringement as an abu of discretion. Becau the jury’s verdict on willfulness was not sup-ported by substantial evidence, this court affirms the district court’s grant of JMOL of no willfulness; the dis-trict court’s alternative grant of a new trial for willfulness
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UNILOC USA v. MICROSOFT
is thus rendered moot. Becau the jury’s damages award was fundamentally tainted by the u of a legally inade-quate methodology, this court affirms the grant of a new trial on damages. Finally, becau the district court did not abu its discretion in determining that the jury verdict of no invalidity of the ’216 patent was supported by substantial evidence, we affirm the district court’s denial of Microsoft’s motion for JMOL of invalidity.
I.B ACKGROUND
Commercial software manufacturers like Microsoft lo significant sales as a result of the “casual copying” of software, where urs install copies of a software program on multiple computers in violation of applicable software licen conditions. Uniloc’s ’216 patent was an early attempt to combat such software piracy. There is no dispute as to the actual functioning of Uniloc’s patented invention and Microsoft’s accud products. The following background information is taken from the district court’s opinion. Uniloc II, 640 F. Supp. 2d 150.
A. The ’216 Patent
Uniloc’s ’216 patent is directed to a software registra-tion system to deter copying of software. The system allows the software to run without restrictions (in “u mode”) only if the system determines that the software installation is legitimate. A reprentative embodiment functions as follows. First, a ur intending to u the software in “u mode” enters certain ur information when prompted, which may include a software rial number and/or name and address information. An algo-rithm on the ur’s computer (a “local licene unique ID generating means”) combines the inputted information into “a registration number unique to an intending licen-e” (a “local licene unique ID”). ’216 patent, Abstract. The ur information is also nt to the vendor’s system,
UNILOC USA v. MICROSOFT 4 which performs the identical algorithm (a “remote licen-e unique ID generating means”) to create a “remote licene unique ID” for the ur. When the application boots again, a “mode switching means” compares the local and remote licene unique IDs. If they match, the pro-gram enters into “u mode.” If they do not match, the program enters into “demo mode,” wherein certain fea-tures are disabled. Figure 8 from the ’216 patent shows the fifth preferred embodiment:
’216 patent, Fig. 8.
Uniloc asrts only independent claim 19:
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19. A remote registration station incorpo-老友记mp3打包下载
rating remote licene unique ID generat-
5
UNILOC USA v. MICROSOFT
ing means, said station forming part of a
registration system for licensing execution
of digital data in a u mode, said digital
data executable on a platform, said system
including local licene unique ID generat-
ing means, said system further including
mode switching means operable on said
platform which permits u of said digital
data in said u mode on said platform
only if a licene unique ID generated by
said local licene unique ID generating
means has matched a licene unique IDallocated
generated by said remote licene unique
ID generating means; and wherein said
remote licene unique ID generating
means compris software executed on a
blue collarpanadolplatform which includes the algorithm
utilized by said local licene unique ID
generating means to produce said licene
unique ID.
’216 patent, col. 15 l.21 – col. 16 l.9 (emphasis added).
B. The Accud Product
The accud product is Microsoft’s Product Activation feature that acts as a gatekeeper to Microsoft’s Word XP, Word 2003, and Windows XP software programs. Upon receipt of Microsoft’s retail software program, the ur must enter a 25-character alphanumeric product key contained within the packaging of Microsoft’s retail products. If the Key is valid, the ur is asked to agree to the End Ur Licen Agreement (“EULA”), by which the licensor-licene relationship is initiated.
At about this time, the software creates a Product ID (“PID”) and a Hardware ID (“HWID”) on the ur’s com-puter. The PID is formed from the combination of the
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UNILOC USA v. MICROSOFT 6 Product Key, information from the software CD, and a random number from the ur’s computer. The HWID is generated from information about the ur’s computer. The ur may u the software without initiating Product Activation, but such u is temporally limited (50 start-ups of Office and 30 days u of Windows until basic functions like saving and printing are deactivated) and functionally limited (no updates can be downloaded and installed). If the ur elects to initiate Product Activation, the software nds a digital licen request to Microsoft over the internet, which includes: the PID, the HWID, and additional activation information. At Microsoft’s remote location, this information is entered into one of two software algorithms: the MD5 message digest algo-rithm (“MD5”) for Office products and the SHA-1 cure hash algorithm (“SHA-1”) for Windows products.1 The functionality of the MD5 and SHA-1 algorithms is at the heart of this ca. As the district court noted, Microsoft’s expert, Dr. Wallach, provided a demonstrative animation, which gives a clear, detailed, and uncontested explanation of the functionality of the algorithms. The animation and the explanation of it given by Dr. Wallach at the trial (Trial Tr. 157:21-166:3, Mar. 31, 2009) may be downloaded at oralarguments.v/ani mation/Uniloc.2010-1035.Animation.pdf.The first frame is explained below.
1As discusd in the animation referred to, in-fra, the only differences between MD5 and SHA-1 are the added logical operation group and shifting step in SHA-1. Throughout this litigation, the two algorithms have been treated as functionally identical for infringement pur-pos. For ea of prentation, this opinion discuss only the MD5 algorithm, but it is uncontested that the same analysis applies to both.
