Kewazinga Corp. v. Microsoft Corporation

Background

In the earlier round of this case, the court granted Microsoft summary judgment on Kewazinga’s patent-infringement claim under the doctrine of equivalents. The court had concluded that Kewazinga’s proposed equivalent was specifically excluded from the patent claims because it was inconsistent with the claims’ requirement that the cameras forming an “array of cameras” have a fixed relationship to one another.

Kewazinga moved for reconsideration under Local Rule 6.3. It argued that the court had committed legal error by treating the accused structure’s lack of literal coverage as the basis for rejecting the doctrine-of-equivalents theory. Kewazinga also requested clarification of the court’s rulings concerning Michelle Riley’s damages testimony and asked for permission to file a supplemental expert report.

Reconsideration standard

The court explained that reconsideration is an extraordinary remedy generally available only when the moving party identifies an intervening change in controlling law, new evidence, or a clear error or manifest injustice. It also stated that reconsideration cannot be used to present new arguments or relitigate issues already decided.

Doctrine of equivalents

The court held that Kewazinga had not shown a basis for reconsideration. It found that Kewazinga’s motion relied on previously presented evidence and existing case law rather than new law or evidence, and that the motion did not identify clear error.

The court further rejected Kewazinga’s description of the earlier ruling. According to the court, it had not rejected the theory merely because Microsoft’s accused structure fell outside the literal scope of the claims. Instead, the court had determined that Kewazinga’s proposed equivalent was specifically excluded because it treated a series of images captured at successive locations by a single camera system as equivalent to multiple cameras in a fixed relationship.

The court emphasized that the doctrine of equivalents must be applied to individual claim elements, not to the invention as a whole, and cannot be used so broadly that it eliminates a claim element. Because cameras that move without a fixed relationship were inconsistent with the claimed cameras’ fixed relationship, the court reaffirmed its earlier conclusion that Kewazinga’s doctrine-of-equivalents claim could not survive.

Damages testimony and supplemental report

The court stated that it had excluded all of Riley’s testimony concerning damages, not merely limited portions of it. Riley’s damages opinion used a reasonable-royalty calculation based on a royalty rate applied to a royalty base. The court previously found that she had not properly apportioned the royalty base between patented and unpatented features of Microsoft’s Streetside product, making her damages testimony unreliable.

The court explained that because Riley lacked a proper opinion about one required part of the damages calculation, she could not testify about the calculation’s overall result, regardless of the merits of her opinion about the other part. The court therefore stated that its earlier ruling excluded all of her damages testimony.

The court did not finally decide Kewazinga’s request to submit a supplemental expert report. It scheduled oral argument concerning the request for clarification, the possibility of reopening expert discovery, the prejudice to Microsoft, and possible measures to address that prejudice.

Disposition

The conclusion states: “Defendants motion for reconsideration is DENIED IN PART.” The court scheduled oral argument for September 21, 2022, regarding the remaining damages-related issues and the request to permit a supplemental report. The clerk was directed to terminate the pending motion.