Broadcom Corporation v. Netflix, Inc.

Case: 22-1764 Document: 37 Page: 1 Filed: 06/22/2023
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
BROADCOM CORPORATION,
Appellant
v.
NETFLIX, INC.,
Appellee
______________________
2022-1764
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2020-
01423.
______________________
Decided: June 22, 2023
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DAN YOUNG, Quarles & Brady LLP, Littleton, CO, ar-
gued for appellant. Also represented by KENT DALLOW;
CHAD KING, King IAM LLC, Lone Tree, CO.
HARPER BATTS, Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton
LLP, Menlo Park, CA, argued for appellee. Also repre-
sented by JEFFREY LIANG, CHRISTOPHER SCOTT PONDER;
JONATHAN RICHARD DEFOSSE, Washington, DC.
______________________
Case: 22-1764 Document: 37 Page: 2 Filed: 06/22/2023
2 BROADCOM CORPORATION v. NETFLIX, INC.
Before CHEN, HUGHES, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges.
CHEN, Circuit Judge.
Broadcom Corporation appeals a decision by the Patent
Trial and Appeal Board determining certain claims of
Broadcom’s U.S. Patent No. 6,341,375 unpatentable under
35 U.S.C. § 103. Because we agree with the Board’s con-
struction of the sole disputed claim term on appeal and
hold its appealed findings supported by substantial evi-
dence, we affirm.
We agree with the Board that “drive server” only re-
quires storage capacity, not computing capabilities. The
intrinsic evidence indicates a “drive server” is simply a col-
lection of disks from which another element, the control
server, retrieves data in response to a user’s request. The
claim language itself calls for a “drive server” that is “con-
figured to present a plurality of compressed data streams
in response to one or more first control signals.” ’375 patent
at claim 1 (emphasis added). This language indicates the
drive server simply responds to requests without a need for
computing capabilities. The specification further supports
this understanding. A preferred embodiment of the ’375
patent includes a disk library 104, which “generally com-
prises one or more DVD drives and associated disks,” and
a server 102, which “may be implemented as a personal
computer.” Id. at col. 2 ll. 34–38 (referring to FIG. 2). The
specification describes the same embodiment as having
both “a server” and a “DVD drive server,” evidently refer-
ring to the server 102 and disk library 104, respectively.
Id. at col. 3 ll. 25–26. Broadcom admits that under its pro-
posed construction, claim 1 would exclude this preferred
embodiment when the disk library contains no computer.
Oral Arg. at 4:35–5:23. Such constructions are “rarely, if
ever, correct and would require highly persuasive eviden-
tiary support.” Vitronics Corp. v. Conceptronic, Inc., 90
F.3d 1576, 1583 (Fed. Cir. 1996). No such evidentiary sup-
port exists here.
Case: 22-1764 Document: 37 Page: 3 Filed: 06/22/2023
BROADCOM CORPORATION v. NETFLIX, INC. 3
Broadcom does not assert that “drive server” has a
well-established meaning in the relevant art. It instead
asserts the specification statement “[t]he present invention
proposes bulk drives on capable servers, with a minimal
cost in the remote decoders 114a-114n” supports its pro-
posed construction. See Appellant’s Br. 21–22 (quoting
’375 patent col. 4 ll. 14–16). We disagree. A more logical
reading of the sentence—one consistent with the rest of the
specification—is that it refers to the three components of
the claimed invention: (1) drive servers (bulk drives), (2)
control servers (capable servers), and (3) decoder devices
(remote decoders), differentiating all three as separate en-
tities. Because the intrinsic evidence sufficiently informs
the meaning of “drive server,” we need not consider the ex-
trinsic evidence to construe this claim term. See Vitronics,
90 F.3d at 1583.
The remaining issues are Broadcom’s challenges to the
Board’s findings relating to one prior art reference—U.S.
Patent No. 5,583,561 (Baker). Baker discloses a video-on-
demand system comprising a video library, a video server,
a network interface, and multiple decoders. The Board rea-
sonably found that, under its construction of “drive server,”
Baker discloses a drive server “configured to present a plu-
rality of compressed data streams” by teaching a video li-
brary that presents multiple video streams to a video
server. Netflix, Inc. v. Broadcom Corp., IPR2020-01423,
2022 WL 683412, at *10–12 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 4, 2022).
Among other things, Broadcom argues Baker does not
teach decoder devices that receive data streams from a con-
trol server, nor does its control server present “portions” of
the data stream to different decoders. In finding otherwise,
the Board found that even though Baker discloses an inter-
mediary network interface between its video server and the
decoders, it still teaches decoder devices that receive data
streams from a control server because the network inter-
face operates under the control of the video server. Id. at
*12–13. The Board also found Baker’s disclosure of a video
Case: 22-1764 Document: 37 Page: 4 Filed: 06/22/2023
4 BROADCOM CORPORATION v. NETFLIX, INC.
stream divided into blocks—each block potentially corre-
sponding to different time periods in the same video and
each block being sent to a different decoder—teaches the
presenting “portions” of the data stream to different decod-
ers limitation. Id. at *13-15. The Board’s reasoning on
these findings is supported by substantial evidence.
We have considered Broadcom’s remaining arguments
and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
affirm the Board’s decision.
AFFIRMED