Summary Judgment Granted For Microsoft on Patent Claims brought by Veritas

Judge Coughenhour adopted findings by the special master and granted Microsoft's motion for partial summary judgment on Veritas' claim for infringement of US Patent No. 5,469,573. Here is a summary of the decision from Jurisnotes and a link to the order's text:

Veritas sued Microsoft for patent infringement and related claims; the court adopted the report of the special master recommending that the court grant Microsoft's motion for summary judgment on Veritas's claim of infringement of the '573 patent. The '573 patent claims a data backup procedure and apparatus for backing up and restoring a fully configured operating system to the high capacity storage device of a computer workstation from standard system backup media without the need to reload and reconfigure the operating system from its original distribution media. Veritas alleges that certain operating system software sold by Microsoft have built-in backup and restore capabilities that can be used to infringe the '573 patent. Microsoft asserts that Veritas has not shown that any specific customer has used the accused software in a way that practices each step of any claim. Because the accused products had undisputed substantial non-infringing uses, Veritas could not show that use of the accused products necessarily infringed. As a result, Veritas had to point to a specific instance of direct infringement in order to avoid summary judgment on its charge of indirect infringement. Veritas had to show that deployment or restoration by a customer was accomplished using a method recited in the claims. The court noted that some of the claimed method steps were inherently ordered and indicated that Veritas had to prove that Microsoft's customers performed those steps in the order set forth in the claims. Veritas's evidence of direct infringement fell into three categories: 1) user manuals and other documents that instructed Microsoft customers on how to use the accused products; 2) testimony by Microsoft witnesses concerning use of the accused products; and 3) emails and other documents concerning use of the accused products.
It was clear that Veritas's reliance on various user manuals and related documents to show that a user actually performed the claimed method was too speculative to raise a genuine issue of material fact in that regard. The court noted that certain of these documents disclosed deployment scenarios that a customer could utilize without infringing the asserted claims. Moreover, Veritas's expert had to cobble together various parts of each document to show that they taught the claimed methods. But these parts were not disclosed together or in the claimed order. Nothing in the evidence indicated that Microsoft's customers had actually used the accused products in the manner suggested by Veritas. In addition, some of the documents did not even point to a sufficiently specific method such that a reasonable jury could identify an infringing method, much less conclude that a Microsoft customer had actually used the accused products to perform a claimed method.

Veritas still has claims for breach of contract and alleged misuse of confidential information. Those claims are set for trial in may 2008, but Vertas' damages are capped at $4,000,000.