Chief Judge Kimberly Moore, writing for the panel, held that the district court erred in interpreting the stipulation. The language stated that 70% of Intel products meeting technical requirements "without regard to geographic considerations" would be deemed to have a U.S. nexus under 35 U.S.C. § 271.
The court rejected Intel's argument that the stipulation was merely an accounting mechanism for damages. The panel noted that the language explicitly addressed infringement purposes.
The dispute centers on U.S. Patent No. 8,566,836, which covers methods and apparatuses for choosing cores of a multicore processor to execute tasks based on processing speed parameters. VLSI sued Intel in 2017, asserting infringement of claims 1, 9-11, 13, 17, and 20-21.
The Federal Circuit also reversed the district court's claim construction of apparatus claim 10. The panel found that Judge Beth Labson Freeman incorrectly imported an "upon identifying" limitation through prosecution disclaimer.
The prosecution history statements, the panel held, did not amount to a clear and unmistakable disclaimer requiring identification of a single-core processing task irrespective of when it is done in relation to core selection.
The Federal Circuit affirmed one ruling below. The panel upheld the district court's decision to strike the damages theories of VLSI's expert, Dr. Sullivan, finding no abuse of discretion in the application of Patent Local Rule 3-8.
VLSI's damages contentions contained scattered references to Intel data and documents and failed to provide adequate notice of the underlying data, the panel said. VLSI retains another damages expert, Mr. Chandler, whose theories remain available for trial.
The case is remanded for further proceedings. VLSI may proceed with infringement claims under both literal infringement and doctrine of equivalents theories.