DCT
1:19-cv-00395
Realtime Data LLC v. InfoVista Corp
I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information
- Parties & Counsel:
- Plaintiff: Realtime Data LLC d/b/a IXO (New York)
- Defendant: InfoVista Corporation (Delaware)
- Plaintiff’s Counsel: Russ August & Kabat
- Case Identification: 1:19-cv-00395, D. Del., 02/26/2019
- Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant is a Delaware corporation that has transacted business and committed alleged acts of infringement in the District of Delaware.
- Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s WAN Optimization and SD-WAN products infringe three patents related to systems and methods for data compression and accelerated data storage.
- Technical Context: The technology at issue is data compression, which is foundational for increasing the efficiency of data storage and network communications by reducing the amount of data that needs to be stored or transmitted.
- Key Procedural History: The complaint alleges that Plaintiff has licensed patents in its portfolio to numerous technology companies, suggesting a history of monetization, but does not mention any prior litigation involving the patents-in-suit or the Defendant.
Case Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1998-12-11 | U.S. Patent No. 8,933,825 Priority Date |
| 1999-03-11 | U.S. Patent No. 9,116,908 Priority Date |
| 2000-10-03 | U.S. Patent No. 9,667,751 Priority Date |
| 2015-01-13 | U.S. Patent No. 8,933,825 Issued |
| 2015-08-25 | U.S. Patent No. 9,116,908 Issued |
| 2017-05-30 | U.S. Patent No. 9,667,751 Issued |
| 2019-02-26 | Complaint Filing Date |
II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis
U.S. Patent No. 9,116,908 - System and methods for accelerated data storage and retrieval
- Patent Identification: U.S. Patent No. 9,116,908, "System and methods for accelerated data storage and retrieval," issued August 25, 2015.
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: The patent's background section describes the challenge of selecting an optimal data compression technique for a given application, noting that factors like compression ratio, processing requirements, and compatibility with standards create complexity, and that a single technique often produces significant variations in performance depending on the data content (’908 Patent, col. 2:26-64).
- The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a system that accelerates data storage by compressing data at a rate faster than a storage device's native write speed, thereby overcoming the storage device's bandwidth limitations (’908 Patent, Abstract). It achieves this by using multiple different compression encoders and selecting the most effective result, ensuring that the combined time to compress and store a data block is less than the time it would take to store the same block in its uncompressed form (’908 Patent, col. 5:1-12).
- Technical Importance: This approach aims to increase the effective input/output speed of storage systems, a critical bottleneck in data-intensive applications, without requiring more expensive hardware (’908 Patent, col. 2:40-52).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts independent Claim 21 (Compl. ¶8).
- The essential elements of Claim 21 are:
- compressing a first data block with a first data compression technique to provide a first compressed data block;
- compressing a second data block with a second data compression technique to provide a second compressed data block, wherein the first data compression technique and the second data compression technique are different;
- storing the first and second data compressed blocks on a memory device wherein the compression and storage occurs faster than the first and second data blocks are able to be stored on the memory device in uncompressed form.
- The complaint reserves the right to assert other claims (Compl. ¶15).
U.S. Patent No. 9,667,751 - Data feed acceleration
- Patent Identification: U.S. Patent No. 9,667,751, "Data feed acceleration," issued May 30, 2017.
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: The patent background identifies the high cost and latency associated with transmitting large quantities of data, such as real-time financial data feeds, over communication channels with limited bandwidth (’751 Patent, col. 1:40-67).
- The Patented Solution: The invention describes a method for accelerating data transmission by using content-aware compression. The system analyzes the content of a data block to identify parameters or attributes (e.g., n-tuple sequences of characters) and then selects an appropriate encoder using a state machine, which transitions between different encoding tables based on the data's context to achieve higher compression ratios (’751 Patent, Abstract; col. 2:24-34).
- Technical Importance: This technology is designed to reduce latency and transparently multiply the effective bandwidth of a communication channel, which is particularly significant for time-sensitive broadcast data like financial market information (’751 Patent, col. 1:40-49).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts independent Claim 1 (Compl. ¶22).
- The essential elements of Claim 1 are:
- analyzing content of a data block to identify a parameter, attribute, or value of the data block that excludes analyzing based solely on reading a descriptor;
- selecting an encoder associated with the identified parameter, attribute, or value;
- compressing data in the data block with the selected encoder to produce a compressed data block, wherein the compressing includes utilizing a state machine;
- storing the compressed data block;
- wherein the time of the compressing the data block and the storing the compressed data block is less than the time of storing the data block in uncompressed form.
- The complaint reserves the right to assert other claims (Compl. ¶31).
U.S. Patent No. 8,933,825 - Data compression systems and methods
- Patent Identification: U.S. Patent No. 8,933,825, "Data compression systems and methods," issued January 13, 2015.
Technology Synopsis
- The patent addresses the problem of selecting an optimal compression technique by disclosing a method that combines content-dependent and content-independent compression (’825 Patent, Abstract). The system analyzes a data block to determine if a specific parameter or attribute is identified; if it is, an associated encoder is used, and if not, a default encoder is used, thereby adapting the compression strategy to the data's characteristics (’825 Patent, Abstract).
Asserted Claims
- Independent Claim 18 is asserted (Compl. ¶37).
Accused Features
- The complaint alleges that Defendant’s WAN Optimization products infringe by analyzing data blocks to identify parameters (e.g., whether a block is repeated) and then selecting an associated encoder (e.g., a "deduplication encoder" for repeated data or a "compression encoder" for unique data) (Compl. ¶¶ 42-47).
III. The Accused Instrumentality
Product Identification
- The accused instrumentalities are InfoVista’s "Ipanema SD-WAN, WAN Optimization, and the system hardware on which they operate" (Compl. ¶7).
Functionality and Market Context
- The complaint alleges the accused products perform "WAN Optimization" to "accelerate application response times and offers additional virtual bandwidth" by using "compression and de-duplication" (Compl. ¶¶ 11, 12). The functionality is described as mitigating latency and optimizing bandwidth resources in network environments (Compl. ¶12).
- The complaint distinguishes between two functionalities: a "de-duplication technique" that compares incoming blocks to eliminate duplicates and sends references instead of repeated data, and a "compression technique" that eliminates redundancies within individual data blocks (Compl. ¶13).
- The products are alleged to store the resulting compressed data blocks on "Ipanema data center physical and virtual appliances" (Compl. ¶14).
- No probative visual evidence provided in complaint.
IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations
9,116,908 Patent Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 21) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| compressing a first data block with a first data compression technique to provide a first compressed data block; | The accused products use optimization technologies including a "compression technique" to reduce data transferred over a network. | ¶12 | col. 5:1-12 |
| and compressing a second data block with a second data compression technique to provide a second compressed data block, wherein the first data compression technique and the second data compression technique are different; | The accused products use both "compression and de-duplication," which are alleged to be different techniques. De-duplication compares blocks to eliminate duplicates, while compression eliminates redundancies within blocks. | ¶13 | col. 5:1-12 |
| storing the first and second data compressed blocks on a memory device wherein the compression and storage occurs faster than the first and second data blocks are able to be stored on the memory device in uncompressed form. | Due to data reduction and acceleration features, the time to compress and store data on Ipanema appliances is alleged to be less than the time required to store the data in uncompressed form. | ¶14 | col. 5:1-12 |
- Identified Points of Contention:
- Scope Questions: A central question may be whether "de-duplication" as described in the complaint qualifies as a "data compression technique" distinct from the "compression technique" also alleged, as required by the claim's "different" limitation.
- Technical Questions: The complaint asserts that the combined act of "compression and storage occurs faster" than uncompressed storage alone. A key evidentiary question will be how this time differential is measured and whether the accused products meet this performance requirement under typical operating conditions.
9,667,751 Patent Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 1) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| analyzing content of a data block to identify a parameter, attribute, or value of the data block that excludes analyzing based solely on reading a descriptor; | The accused products analyze data blocks to detect repeated data blocks as part of "de-duplication and redundancy elimination," which is an analysis of content beyond reading a simple header or descriptor. | ¶26 | col. 2:24-34 |
| selecting an encoder associated with the identified parameter, attribute, or value; | The accused products are alleged to support both "data compression and deduplication techniques" and select between them based on whether a data block is identified as repeated. | ¶27 | col. 2:24-34 |
| compressing data in the data block with the selected encoder to produce a compressed data block, wherein the compressing includes utilizing a state machine; | The accused products perform compression and deduplication. The complaint alleges this satisfies the "utilizing a state machine" limitation without providing specific facts about the products' internal architecture. | ¶28 | col. 3:10-30 |
| and storing the compressed data block; | The accused products store compressed data blocks on Ipanema data center physical and virtual appliances. | ¶29 | col. 2:24-34 |
| wherein the time of the compressing the data block and the storing the compressed data block is less than the time of storing the data block in uncompressed form. | Due to data reduction and acceleration features, the combined time of compressing and storing is alleged to be less than the time of storing the data uncompressed. | ¶30 | col. 2:24-34 |
- Identified Points of Contention:
- Technical Questions: The complaint's allegation that the accused products utilize a "state machine" is conclusory. A primary point of contention will likely be whether the accused products' architecture for selecting between compression and deduplication meets the claim's "state machine" requirement as it is defined in the patent.
- Scope Questions: A question for the court will be whether analyzing data to "detect repeated data blocks" satisfies the negative limitation "excludes analyzing based solely on reading a descriptor," which may depend on the specific implementation of the accused de-duplication functionality.
V. Key Claim Terms for Construction
The Term: "data compression technique" (’908 Patent, Claim 21)
- Context and Importance: The construction of this term is critical because Claim 21 requires the use of two "different" data compression techniques. The dispute may turn on whether the accused "compression" and "de-duplication" functionalities are considered distinct techniques under the patent's definition. Practitioners may focus on this term because if "de-duplication" is not a "data compression technique," the claim is not infringed.
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification provides a non-exhaustive list of compression techniques, including "run length, Huffman, Lempel-Ziv Dictionary Compression, arithmetic coding, data compaction, and data null suppression," suggesting the term encompasses a wide variety of methods for reducing data size (’908 Patent, col. 7:8-14).
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent consistently discusses these techniques in the context of encoders that process and output an encoded data block. A defendant may argue that "de-duplication," which can involve sending a reference instead of a data block, is a fundamentally different process not contemplated by the patent's use of "compression technique."
The Term: "state machine" (’751 Patent, Claim 1)
- Context and Importance: This term is central to the claimed invention's method of content-aware compression. Infringement will depend on whether the accused products' logic for selecting an encoder can be characterized as a "state machine." Practitioners may focus on this term because the complaint lacks specific factual allegations mapping this element to the accused products.
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification states that the invention may be implemented in various forms of hardware or software, and that system elements with similar functionality may be programmed in different ways, suggesting the term should not be limited to a specific hardware structure (’751 Patent, col. 5:25-50).
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The detailed description and figures illustrate the state machine in the context of specific table-based structures where states correspond to contexts (e.g., n-tuple sequences) and transitions are determined by the next character in a data stream (’751 Patent, Fig. 3, col. 9:43-62). A party could argue the term should be limited to this disclosed embodiment.
VI. Other Allegations
- Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges both induced and contributory infringement for all asserted patents. Inducement is based on allegations that Defendant provides marketing materials, user manuals, and technical support that encourage and instruct customers on how to use the accused products in an infringing manner (Compl. ¶¶ 11, 24, 40). Contributory infringement is based on allegations that the products are especially adapted for infringement and have no substantial non-infringing uses (Compl. ¶¶ 9, 25, 38).
- Willful Infringement: The complaint alleges that Defendant has had knowledge of the patents-in-suit and their infringement "since at least the filing of the original Complaint in this action, or shortly thereafter" (Compl. ¶¶ 10, 23, 39). The allegations appear to primarily support a claim for post-filing willfulness. The complaint also asserts "willful blindness" in its inducement counts (Compl. ¶¶ 11, 24).
VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case
- A core issue will be one of technical implementation: what is the specific mechanism by which the accused products select between "compression" and "de-duplication," and does that mechanism constitute a "state machine" as required by the ’751 Patent? The complaint's conclusory allegations on this point suggest this will be a central area of factual discovery and dispute.
- A key question will be one of definitional scope: can "de-duplication," a technique that may replace a data block with a reference, be construed as a "data compression technique" under the language of the ’908 Patent, and is it "different" from the other "compression technique" allegedly used?
- A final evidentiary question will be one of performance metrics: can Plaintiff prove that the accused products meet the quantitative performance limitation common to the asserted claims—that the combined process of compressing and storing data is demonstrably "faster" than the process of storing the data in its uncompressed form?