Amazon.com, Inc. v. Personal Web Technologies, LLC

Background

The opinion arose within multidistrict patent litigation involving PersonalWeb Technologies, LLC and Amazon.com, Inc. and Amazon Web Services, Inc. PersonalWeb moved for entry of a final judgment of non-infringement under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). PersonalWeb stated that, after the Court construed the disputed terms “unauthorized or unlicensed” and “authorization” in its August 16, 2019 claim-construction order, it could not meet its burden of proving infringement. PersonalWeb sought judgment so the parties could avoid further litigation while preserving PersonalWeb’s right to appeal the claim construction.

Amazon opposed the motion. It argued that it had raised additional, independent non-infringement arguments in a pending summary-judgment motion. Amazon also argued that PersonalWeb’s proposed judgment concerning U.S. Patent Nos. 5,978,791 and 7,945,544 would create problems regarding whether the patents could be asserted again. Finally, Amazon argued that the Court should hear the Amazon and Twitch matters together because the cases involved identical or overlapping claim-construction and non-infringement issues.

PersonalWeb’s Rule 41 Request

In its reply brief, PersonalWeb changed the asserted basis for its request. It stated that Rule 54(b) might not be the technically correct rule and asked the Court to dismiss the entire action under Rule 41(a)(2). The Court declined to consider that request because PersonalWeb raised it for the first time in its reply brief. The Court also noted that PersonalWeb’s request appeared to seek dismissal of all cases consolidated in the multidistrict litigation. In a footnote, the Court stated that Rule 41(a)(2) is invoked at a plaintiff’s request and that Amazon, not PersonalWeb, was the plaintiff in this declaratory-judgment action.

Court’s Analysis and Ruling

The Court agreed with Amazon and denied PersonalWeb’s motion for entry of judgment. It concluded that Amazon’s additional non-infringement arguments were independent of the claim-construction issue that PersonalWeb planned to appeal. Because Amazon’s summary-judgment motion had already been filed and was scheduled to be heard in two weeks, the Court found no valid reason to prevent Amazon from obtaining a ruling on those arguments.

The Court also found Amazon’s argument concerning the Twitch action persuasive. The Court had designated the Twitch action as a representative case for numerous customer cases and had directed it to proceed with the Amazon matter. Separating the cases at that stage, the Court concluded, would conflict with the efficiencies sought throughout the multidistrict litigation.

The Court vacated the January 23, 2020 hearing and denied PersonalWeb’s motion for entry of judgment of non-infringement. The opinion did not grant the requested non-infringement judgment and did not decide Amazon’s pending summary-judgment motion.