PersonalWeb Technologies, LLC v. Twitch Interactive, Inc.

Background

This litigation was part of a multidistrict patent case involving PersonalWeb Technologies, LLC’s allegations that Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon Web Services, Inc., and Amazon customers infringed four patents connected to the use of Amazon’s CloudFront and Simple Storage Service. The court identified PersonalWeb’s case against Twitch Interactive, Inc. as a representative customer case.

The court had issued a claim construction order on August 16, 2019. Claim construction is the court’s interpretation of disputed words and phrases in patent claims. The order construed “unauthorized or unlicensed,” as used in claim 20 of the ’310 patent, to mean “not compliant with a valid license.” PersonalWeb then moved to clarify or supplement that order. It argued that “licensed” should instead reflect “valid rights to content,” and asked the court to adopt a construction from an earlier order issued by another court involving different claims.

Amazon argued that PersonalWeb was improperly seeking reconsideration of an issue already resolved. Amazon also argued that PersonalWeb had previously had opportunities to seek a different construction or raise any ambiguity in Amazon’s proposed language.

Court’s analysis

The court first held that PersonalWeb’s motion was procedurally proper. It explained that a court may revisit or adjust a claim construction as its understanding of the technology develops, so a request for clarification is not inherently improper.

The court nevertheless declined to clarify or supplement its order. It reasoned that PersonalWeb had consistently argued during claim construction that “authorization” meant permission and that “license” was a narrower form of authorization. PersonalWeb had also proposed that “unauthorized or unlicensed” mean “not permitted or not permitted under a license.” According to the court, PersonalWeb therefore had not shown that it was confused about the meaning of “license.”

The court further reasoned that PersonalWeb had known for months about Amazon’s proposed construction, which the court ultimately adopted. The court viewed PersonalWeb’s request as an effort to restore the broader meaning of “unauthorized” that PersonalWeb had previously advocated and lost. The court also found that PersonalWeb was not actually asking for clarification of a stand-alone claim term used in an asserted claim, but instead was asking the court to import another court’s construction addressing different claims and a different dispute.

Finally, the court found that PersonalWeb’s request for guidance about the effect of the construction on its infringement analysis was not properly presented. The motion did not develop that issue, and the court stated that a party sponsoring an expert report should not seek advance judicial approval of the report; an opposing party may instead move to strike evidence it considers inadmissible.

Disposition

Judge Beth Labson Freeman denied PersonalWeb’s motion to clarify or supplement the claim construction order. The court did not resolve the underlying patent-infringement claims in this order.