DCT
8:19-cv-00477
Uniloc 2017 LLC v. Microsoft Corp
I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information
- Parties & Counsel:
- Plaintiff: Uniloc 2017 LLC (Delaware)
- Defendant: Microsoft Corporation (Washington)
- Plaintiff’s Counsel: FEINBERG DAY ALBERTI LIM & BELLOLI LLP
- Case Identification: 8:19-cv-00477, C.D. Cal., 03/12/2019
- Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant has committed acts of infringement in the Central District of California and maintains multiple regular and established places of business within the district.
- Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s Microsoft PlayReady digital rights management platform infringes a patent related to methods for navigating intellectual property databases using hierarchical data structures.
- Technical Context: The technology addresses the management and licensing of digital content rights, a foundational component of Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems used to control access to streaming media and other protected content.
- Key Procedural History: The complaint does not mention any prior litigation, Inter Partes Review (IPR) proceedings, or licensing history related to the patent-in-suit.
Case Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2000-12-28 | U.S. Patent 7,092,953 – Priority Date |
| 2006-08-15 | U.S. Patent 7,092,953 – Issue Date |
| 2019-03-12 | Complaint Filing Date |
II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis
U.S. Patent No. 7,092,953 - “Apparatus And Method For Intellectual Property Database Navigation,” issued August 15, 2006
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: The patent’s background section describes the difficulty of managing a “complex bundle of intellectual property rights” associated with a media asset, such as a film. It notes that using conventional database techniques to determine the availability of specific rights (e.g., for different markets, languages, or time periods) can be “time consuming and processor intensive” and that the databases can become “very large and difficult to maintain” (’953 Patent, col. 1:25-49).
- The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a more efficient system that manages rights through inference using hierarchical data structures. Instead of storing every granular right individually, a rights owner specifies the “most or more general level of rights owned” and licensed out. When a query for a specific, lower-level right is made, the system determines its availability by “forming implicit relationships” between the general levels of rights owned and licensed, a process described as “bi-directional hierarchical navigation” (’953 Patent, Abstract; col. 2:50-65).
- Technical Importance: This inferential approach to rights management was designed to reduce the amount of data that needed to be explicitly stored and queried, offering a potentially faster and more efficient technique for determining rights availability in large media catalogs (’953 Patent, col. 2:1-6).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts infringement of at least independent claim 1 (Compl. ¶13).
- The essential elements of independent claim 1 include:
- A method of locating rights associated with a media property.
- Defining a first rights characteristic.
- Defining and storing in computer readable memory a “first media rights hierarchy data structure” with a set of nodes having corresponding values for that characteristic.
- Identifying media rights “ancestors” and “decedents” within the set of nodes.
- Assigning node identifiers to the nodes.
- Identifying a first set of rights for a media property, corresponding to a portion of the nodes.
- Retrieving rights-related information from memory “using a joining of the first set of rights and the first media rights hierarchy data structure.”
III. The Accused Instrumentality
Product Identification
- The complaint identifies “Microsoft PlayReady” as the accused instrumentality, including its component “PlayReady License Servers” and the “Microsoft Azure PlayReady Server” (collectively, the “Accused Infringing Devices”) (Compl. ¶¶9, 12, 16).
Functionality and Market Context
- Microsoft PlayReady is described as a Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology used for media content protection (Compl. ¶14). Its function is to “associate content rights and policies with media properties when generating licenses” (Compl. ¶14).
- The complaint alleges the technology uses “scalable chained licenses” that are organized into a “hierarchy (binary tree)” to define rights based on criteria like geographical regions or media channels (Compl. ¶16). These licenses carry policies, such as a “begin date policy” or an “expiration after first play policy,” which dictate how content can be accessed (Compl. ¶15).
- The complaint cites Microsoft’s own materials, which claim PlayReady is the “Widest Deployed Content Protection Technology in the World” (Compl. ¶14). A diagram from a Microsoft document illustrates a region-based hierarchy for licenses, showing nodes for "West," "Pacific," "California," and "San Diego" in a tree structure (Compl. ¶16, p. 7).
IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations
U.S. Patent 7,092,953 Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 1) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| defining a first rights characteristic | The Accused Infringing Devices define licenses that include rights characteristics such as a “begin date Policy” or an “expiration after first play” policy. | ¶15 | col. 28:56 |
| defining and storing in computer readable memory a first media rights hierarchy data structure having a first set of nodes... | The accused devices define a media rights hierarchy through regional and channel hierarchies, which are shown in diagrams as a “hierarchy of a set of nodes.” | ¶16 | col. 28:57-62 |
| identifying media rights ancestors and media rights decedents within the first set of nodes | The accused devices are alleged to identify ancestors (roots) and decedents (leafs) within the hierarchy of a scalable license chain, as illustrated in diagrams of region-based and channel-based key derivation schemes. | ¶17 | col. 29:1-2 |
| assigning node identifiers to the first set nodes of the first media rights hierarchy data structure | Each license (node) in the chain is identified by a "key identifier or KID," and leaf licenses contain an "uplink identifier" pointing to a parent license. | ¶18 | col. 29:3-5 |
| identifying a first set of rights for a first media property... | The accused devices identify a set of rights (PlayReady policies) that are associated with a root node and apply to all content protected by the leaf nodes. | ¶19 | col. 29:6-9 |
| retrieving from computer readable memory rights related information using a joining of the first set of rights and the first media rights hierarchy data structure | The accused devices allegedly retrieve license information from memory "using a joining of the first set of rights and the first media rights hierarchy data structure" in order to build and issue licenses. | ¶20 | col. 29:10-13 |
- Identified Points of Contention:
- Scope Questions: The patent describes a method for “locating rights” in a database to determine their availability for licensing transactions (’953 Patent, col. 10:1-10; Fig. 3A). The complaint alleges that PlayReady, a DRM enforcement technology, infringes. This raises the question of whether enforcing pre-defined rights in a delivered license is equivalent to the patent’s claimed method of “locating rights” within a larger database of availabilities.
- Technical Questions: A second diagram from Microsoft documentation illustrates a channel-based license hierarchy as a binary tree (Compl. ¶17, p. 7). The complaint alleges that the accused system performs a “joining” of rights and this hierarchy structure (Compl. ¶20). However, the complaint does not specify the technical mechanism of this “joining.” It remains a question for the court what evidence will show that applying policies from a hierarchical key derivation scheme constitutes the specific database navigation and joining method required by the claim.
V. Key Claim Terms for Construction
- The Term: "media rights hierarchy data structure"
- Context and Importance: This term is central, as infringement will depend on whether Microsoft’s “scalable chained license” system, described as a “binary tree” for key derivation (Compl. ¶16), qualifies as the claimed structure. Practitioners may focus on whether the term is limited to a database structure for querying availability or if it can encompass a key derivation hierarchy for DRM enforcement.
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification provides numerous examples of hierarchies for different rights characteristics, including media type, territory, language, and time, suggesting the term could be interpreted broadly to cover various hierarchical arrangements of rights-related data (’953 Patent, Figs. 8A, 9A, 10A, 12A).
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent repeatedly frames the invention as a solution to the problem of determining property and rights availability for licensing transactions (’953 Patent, col. 1:41-46, col. 2:50-54). This context could support a narrower construction limited to data structures used for querying a database of available rights, as opposed to enforcing rights already granted.
- The Term: "locating rights"
- Context and Importance: This term defines the overall purpose of the claimed method. The dispute may turn on whether the accused function of applying policies within a license is considered “locating rights.”
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The term could be argued to cover any process that determines the permissions associated with a piece of content, including checking policies embedded in a DRM license.
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent’s detailed description and figures illustrate a pre-transaction process where a buyer searches a seller’s system to find available rights (’953 Patent, Fig. 3A, state 302; col. 10:50-54). This may support an interpretation limiting the term to the act of finding rights that are available for licensing, not enforcing rights that have already been licensed.
VI. Other Allegations
- Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges that Microsoft induces infringement by providing customers with instructions on how to use the accused products through materials like user guides and documentation available on its websites (Compl. ¶22). It also alleges contributory infringement, stating that the accused products are especially adapted for infringement and are not staple articles of commerce (Compl. ¶23).
- Willful Infringement: The complaint makes a claim for willful infringement based on Microsoft’s alleged knowledge of the ’953 patent from the date of the complaint’s filing and service (Compl. ¶24).
VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case
- A core issue will be one of functional purpose: Does Microsoft PlayReady’s system, which functions as a Digital Rights Management (DRM) platform for enforcing license terms through a hierarchical key derivation scheme, perform the method claimed in the ’953 patent, which is described as a database navigation system for locating the availability of rights for potential licensing transactions?
- A second key issue will be one of definitional scope: Can the claim term "media rights hierarchy data structure", which is taught in the patent’s context of a queryable database of rights, be construed to read on the “scalable chained license” hierarchy used in the accused PlayReady system for managing cryptographic keys and policies?
- A central evidentiary question will be one of technical implementation: What evidence will demonstrate that the accused system’s application of policies from a hierarchical license chain performs the specific, claimed step of “retrieving... information using a joining of the first set of rights and the first media rights hierarchy data structure,” or is there a fundamental mismatch in the underlying technical operation?