SOUND VIEW INNOVATIONS, LLC v. HULU, LLC

Sound View owns now-expired U.S. Patent No. 6,708,213, titled “Method for Streaming Multimedia Information over Public Networks.” Sound View alleges that Hulu infringed claim 16 of the ’213 patent, which recites “allocating a buffer” at a helper server “to cache” at least a portion of the streaming multimedia (SM) object, and sending that portion to a requesting client while concurrently retrieving a remaining portion of the SM object. The district court held that under its claim construction, a “cache” could not be the “buffer”, and granted summary judgment of non-infringement. Sound View appeals. Based on the applicants’ statements during prosecution of the ’213 patent, the CAFC agree with the district court that the applicants limited claim 16 to using the same buffer for the required concurrent downloading and retrieval of portions of a requested SM object, but finds that the court’s construction was inadequate for the second step of an infringement analysis (comparison to the accused products or methods), and holds that a further, affirmative construction is needed. The CAFC also found no abuse of discretion in the district court’s rulings that excluded certain expert testimony offered on the issue of a reasonable royalty. Accordingly, the CAFC affirms the district court’s construction of the downloading/retrieving limitation and evidentiary rulings, but (rejecting the district court’s determination that “buffer” cannot cover “a cache”), vacates the grant of summary judgment and remands for further proceedings. 

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