Patent Law

Summary Misjudgment

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Uniloc sued Microsoft for infringing 5,490,216, claiming an anti-piracy software registration system. Microsoft's product activation system was accused. The district court judge granted summary judgment of non-infringement despite concession by Microsoft.

Uniloc v. Microsoft (CAFC 2008-1121) [non-precedential]

Uniloc had wanted the judge to recuse himself after appointing an intern that Uniloc considered favorable to Microsoft. That went nowhere.

Although reasonable minds could very well differ over the propriety of hiring this intern to work on the case given his financial ties, no matter how small the monetary amount, to one of the parties involved, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion for recusal.

Summary noninfringement hinged on construing ID generation.

Uniloc limits its appeal to claims 12 and 19, contending that the district court erred in concluding that Microsoft's Product Activation system lacked a remote licensee unique ID generating means that includes "the identical algorithm used by the local licensee unique ID generating means to produce the [remote] licensee unique ID," or what Microsoft called the "same algorithm" requirement. Uniloc is correct. The district court erred by concluding that:

Once again Uniloc misses the point: the '216 Patent calls for the same algorithm to be used on both sides as the generating means of matching licensee unique IDs. That is simply not the case in Microsoft's system; its values that might qualify as licensee unique IDs are produced by different algorithms, using different inputs, and hence the resulting licensee unique IDs do not match.

Uniloc USA, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., C.A. No. 03-440 S, slip op. at 24 (D.R.I. Oct. 19, 2007) (emphasis in original).

Microsoft itself conceded at oral argument that the district court erred in failing to note that Uniloc had indeed pointed to statements from Microsoft's affiants that the same hashing algorithm was, in fact, used both locally and remotely. Oral Arg. at 19:29-31, available at http://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/mp3/2008-1121.mp3 ("The district court did make that small error."). As pointed out in Uniloc's summary judgment opposition brief and summary judgment hearing arguments, Microsoft's affiants confirmed that the same hashing algorithms are used on both the client and server side of the Product Activation system. See Joint App'x at 1188; 1203. Microsoft also asserted in its statement of undisputed facts that the hashing algorithms in question are used to hash license data, which is created from a combination of the Hardware ID and the Product ID, which is in turn created from the Product Key. Moreover, Uniloc presented evidence that these hash algorithms are used to produce matching license digests based upon the testimony of both its expert and Microsoft's affiants. Given the presence of this evidence, which was extensive and by no means conclusory, summary judgment of noninfringement was improper.

Reversed and remanded.

Microsoft presented "several alternative grounds for affirming the summary judgment beyond those which were reached by the district court. We have considered these arguments and conclude they are without merit."

The ruling was 2-1. Chief Judge Michel dissented, thinking Microsoft's other arguments had merit, particularly that the claimed ID requires user personal information, whereas Microsoft's system does not.

This is the second CAFC case this week where judicial impartiality and competence are forefront, both Microsoft cases.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on August 07, 2008 (boomark / email).