Kaavo Inc. v. Amazon.com Inc.

323 F.Supp.3d 630

KAAVO INC., Plaintiff,

v.AMAZON.COM INC. and Amazon Web Services, Inc., Defendants.

C.A. No. 14–353–LPS–CJB

United States District Court, D. Delaware.

Signed June 18, 2018

Stamatios Stamoulis, Richard C. Weinblatt, Sheekhar Vyas, STAMOULIS & WEINBLATT LLC, Wilmington, DE, James T. Bailey, Gregory Pollaro, LAW OFFICES OF JAMES T. BAILEY, New York, NY, Attorneys for Plaintiff.

Karen Jacobs, Megan E. Dellinger, MORRIS, NICHOLS, ARSHT & TUNNELL LLP, Wilmington, DE, Alan M. Fisch, R. William Sigler, Jeffrey Saltman, Joseph Edell, FISCH SIGLER LLP, Washington, DC, Attorneys for Defendants.

MEMORANDUM OPINION

STARK, U.S. District Judge

Pending before the Court are: (I) Defendants Amazon.com, Inc. and Amazon Web Services, Inc.'s (collectively, "Amazon" or "Defendants") motion for summary judgment of invalidity under 35 U.S.C. § 101 (D.I. 124); and (ii) Plaintiff Kaavo Inc.'s ("Kaavo" or "Plaintiff") motion for reconsideration of the Court's March 31, 2016 Order in light of subsequently-issued authority (DJ. 131).¹ For the reasons stated below, the Court will grant Defendants' motion and deny Plaintiffs motion.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Procedural History

Plaintiff sued Defendants for infringement of United States Patent No. 8,271,974 (the "'974 patent"), which is entitled "Cloud Computing Lifecycle Management for N-tier Applications." In related cases, Magistrate Judge Burke issued a report and recommendation that the asserted independent claims, as well as dependent claim 12, be found patent ineligible under. § 101. (C.A. No. 14–1192 D.I. 35; C.A. No. 14–1193 D.I. 42) ("R & R") Over Plaintiffs objection (C.A. No. 14–1192 D.I. 39; C.A. No. 14–1193 D.I. 46), the Court adopted the R & R in full (C.A. No. 14–1192 DJ. 44; C.A. No. 14–1193 D.I. 52). Later, Magistrate Judge Burke ordered limited discovery as well as claim construction and summary judgment briefing, with respect to the eligibility of the remaining dependent claims, and conducted a hearing on these issues. (See DJ. 116) Thereafter, the Court denied without prejudice Defendants' summary judgment motion and Plaintiffs request to re-file a Rule 60 motion for reconsideration of the Court's ruling on the independent claims, instead ordering new briefing to allow the parties—and the Court—to consider anew all § I 01 issues in light of the manifold decisions issued by the Federal Circuit with respect to patent eligibility since this Court's earlier opinion issued in March 2016. (See D.I. 118, 121)

The parties completed briefing (see D.I. 126, 132, 136) and submitted expert declarations (see D.I. 127, 133, 137). On March 12, 2018, the Court held a combined hearing on the motions and claim construction. (See D.I. 140 ("Tr.") )²

B. The Patent-in-Suit

The '974 patent generally relates to methods, devices, and systems [in] the fields of computers, information technology, virtualization, and cloud computing," and, more particularly, the "management of a cloud computing environment for use by a software application." '974 patent, col. 1 11. 6–11. The application may include software "(e.g., a web portal with email functionality, database programs, word processing programs, accounting programs, inventory management programs, numerical analysis programs)," or services "(e.g., an autonomous unit that is responsible for a transformation, storage and/or retrieval of data, such as a database management service or a database API service)." Id. col. 1 11. 46–55.

The patent explains that "[ c]loud computing may be used to leverage virtualization of the resources of, for example, data centers." Id. col. 1 11. 2 1–22. According to the patent, "[v]irtualization technology facilitates the operation of multiple virtual servers within a single physical server system, such that each virtual sever may operate within its own unique system environment (e.g., operating system, applications)." Id. col. I 11. 12–15. "Cloud providers, which may operate resources such as data centers and/or other information technology-related capabilities, may facilitate the use of such resources by providing users (which may be remote to the cloud provider) with access to their resources." Id. col. 1 11. 22–26. The patent refers to these "potentially accessible resources" collectively as a "cloud computing environment" or a "cloud environment." Id. col. I IL 27–29.

The cloud computing environment "may be an N–tier environment." Id. Abstract; Fig. 8. The patent describes the N–tier computing environment as "having any number of tiers (e.g., logical groupings of components directed to a general type of functionality)" that is made available to the application by the cloud environment. Id. col. 5 11. 22–30; see also id. col. 5 IL (noting that "application cloud environment configuration ... may include an environment containing ... 20 or more tiers"). The patent lists some examples of tiers such as "a presentation tier, an application tier (e.g., a logic or business logic tier), and a database tier." Id. col. 5 IL 34–35.

The patent explains that "[e]ach individual cloud configuration may contribute all, a portion, or none of each individual tier of the. N-tier configuration of application cloud environment configuration." Id. col. 611. 3–5; see also id. col. 611. 6–10 ("(A]n embodiment of application cloud environment configuration 110 may include application tier that contains servers (e.g., virtual servers, physical servers) from cloud configurations 111 and 112, and a database tier that contains servers from cloud configurations 112–115."). The patent also describes "various modules of an embodiment of an N-tier configuration lifecycle management engine for managing a cloud computing environment for use by a software application." Id. col. 13 11. 57–60; see also id. col. 13 l. 64–col. 16 I. 39 (listing examples of several modules).

II. LEGAL STANDARDS

A. Summary Judgment

Under Rule 56(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, "[t)he court shall grant summary judgment if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." The moving party bears the burden of demonstrating the absence of a genuine issue of material fact. See Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co., Ltd. v. Zenith Radio Corp. , 475 U.S. 574, 585–86, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986). An assertion that a fact cannot be—or, alternatively, is—genuinely disputed must be supported either by "citing to particular parts of materials in the record, including depositions, documents, electronically stored information, affidavits or declarations, stipulations (including those made for purposes of the motion only), admissions, interrogatory answers, or other materials," or by "showing that the materials cited do not establish the absence or presence of a genuine dispute, or that an adverse party cannot produce admissible evidence to support the fact." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(l)(A) & (B). If the moving party bas carried its burden, the nonmovant must then "come forward with specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial." Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348 (internal quotation marks omitted). The Court will "draw all reasonable inferences in favor of the nonmoving party, and it may not make credibility determinations or weigh the evidence." Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc. , 530 U.S. 133, 150, 120 S.Ct. 2097, 147 L.Ed.2d 105 (2000).

To defeat a motion for summary judgment, the nonmoving party must "do more than simply show that there is some metaphysical doubt as to the material facts." Matsushita, 475 U.S. at 586, 106 S.Ct. 1348 ; see also Podobnik v. U.S. Postal Serv. , 409 F.3d 584, 594 (3d Cir. 2005) (stating party opposing summary judgment "must present more than just bare assertions, conclusory allegations or suspicions to show the existence of a genuine issue") (internal quotation marks omitted). The "mere existence of some alleged factual dispute between the parties will not defeat an otherwise properly supported motion for summary judgment;" a factual dispute is genuine only where "the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. , 477 U.S. 242, 247–48, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). "If the evidence is merely colorable, or is not significantly probative, summary judgment may be granted." Id. at 249–50, 106 S.Ct. 2505 (internal citations omitted); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) (stating entry of summary judgment is mandated "against a party who fails to make a showing sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to that party's case, and on which that party will bear the burden of proof at trial"). Thus, the "mere existence of a scintilla of evidence" in support of the nonmoving party's position is insufficient to defeat a motion for summary judgment; there must be "evidence on which the jury could reasonably find" for the nonmoving party. Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505.

B. Section 101 : Patentable Subject Matter

Under 35 U.S.C. § 101, "[w]hoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title." There are three exceptions to § 101's broad patent-eligibility principles: "laws of nature, physical phenomena, and abstract ideas." Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 309, 100 S.Ct. 2204, 65 L.Ed.2d 144 (1980). "Whether a claim recites patent eligible subject matter is a question of law which may contain disputes over underlying facts." Berkheimer v. HP inc. , 881 F.3d 1360, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2018).

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