No.

16-1102

In the Supreme Court of the United States

SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., ET AL., PETITIONERS
v.
APPLE INC.

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT

BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES AS AMICUS CURIAE

NOEL J. FRANCISCO
Solicitor General
Counsel of Record
CHAD A. READLER
Acting Assistant Attorney
General
MALCOLM L. STEWART
NATHAN K. KELLEY Deputy Solicitor General
Solicitor ZACHARY D. TRIPP
THOMAS W. KRAUSE Assistant to the Solicitor
Deputy Solicitor General
SARAH E. CRAVEN MARK R. FREEMAN
LORE A. UNT DANA KAERSVANG
MICHAEL S. FORMAN Attorneys
Associate Solicitors Department of Justice
United States Patent and Washington, D.C. 20530-0001
Trademark Office [email protected]
Alexandria, Va. 22313 (202) 514-2217
QUESTIONS PRESENTED
1. Whether, in a patent-infringement suit where a
jury is impaneled and no objection is made to the jury
instructions, the jurys verdict that the defendant failed
to establish a defense of obviousness is reviewed defer-
entially on appeal.
2. Whether a prevailing patent owner can obtain a
permanent injunction against a competitors continued
infringement without showing that the patented feature
is the sole driver of consumer demand for the product.
3. Whether the jurys verdict of infringement in this
case was supported by substantial evidence.

(I)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Interest of the United States....................................................... 1
Statement ...................................................................................... 1
Discussion ...................................................................................... 8
I. Petitioners challenge to the court of appeals
obviousness ruling does not warrant review................. 8
II. Petitioners challenge to the court of appeals
standard for patent injunctions does not warrant
review .............................................................................. 17
III. Petitioners challenge to the finding of
infringement of the quick-links patent does not
warrant review ............................................................... 20
Conclusion ................................................................................... 22
Appendix Final jury instructions (Apr. 28, 2014) ............. 1a

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases:

Bischoff v. Wethered, 76 U.S. (9 Wall.) 812 (1870) ............. 12

Colombia v. Cauca Co., 190 U.S. 524 (1903) ....................... 21
eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388
(2006) ............................................................................ 2, 8, 18
Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1
(1966) .............................................................1, 2, 3, 12, 14, 16
Hana Fin., Inc. v. Hana Bank, 135 S. Ct. 907
(2015) ...............................................................9, 10, 12, 13, 14
Hotchkiss v. Greenwood, 52 U.S. (11 How.) 248
(1851) ...................................................................................... 2
Intelligent Bio-Sys., Inc. v. Illumina Cambridge
Ltd., 821 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2016) ................................. 17
Keyes v. Grant, 118 U.S. 25 (1886)....................................... 11
KSR Intl Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398
(2007) ...........................................................8, 9, 13, 14, 16, 17

(III)
IV

CasesContinued: Page
Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai Technologies,
Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2111 (2014) ................................................... 2
Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Ltd. Pship, 564 U.S. 91 (2011) ......... 2
Randall v. Baltimore & Ohio R.R., 109 U.S. 478
(1883) .................................................................................... 11
Stepan Co., In re, No. 2016-1811, 2017 WL 3648528
(Fed. Cir. Aug. 25, 2017) .................................................... 16
Thomson Spot Welder Co. v. Ford Motor Co.,
265 U.S. 445 (1924).............................................................. 12
Tucker v. Spalding, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 453 (1872) ........ 11, 12
United States v. Esnault-Pelterie, 299 U.S. 201
(1936) .................................................................................... 11
United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506 (1995) ................ 9, 10

Statutes and rules:

Patent Act of 1952, 35 U.S.C. 101 et seq. ............................... 1

35 U.S.C. 103 ............................................................ 1, 2, 12
35 U.S.C. 103(a) ................................................................. 1
35 U.S.C. 271(a) ................................................................. 2
35 U.S.C. 281 ...................................................................... 2
35 U.S.C. 282(a) ................................................................. 2
35 U.S.C. 282(b)(2) ............................................................ 2
35 U.S.C. 283 ................................................................ 2, 18
35 U.S.C. 284 ...................................................................... 2
Fed. R. Civ. P.:
Rule 50(a) ......................................................... 9, 12, 13, 14
Rule 50(b)(3) ................................................................ 9, 13
Rule 51(c) ......................................................................... 13
Rule 52(a)(6) ..................................................................... 14
Rule 56(a) ........................................................................ 12
Rule 56(g) ......................................................................... 12
V

Miscellaneous: Page
W. Page Keeton et al., Prosser and Keeton on the
Law of Torts (5th ed. 1984) ................................................ 19
Mark A. Lemley, Why Do Juries Decide If Patents
Are Valid, 99 Va. L. Rev. 1673 (2013) ............................... 12
2 Restatement (Second) of Torts (1965) ........................ 10, 19
3 William C. Robinson, Law of Patents for Useful
Inventions (1890) ................................................................ 12
Albert H. Walker, Text-Book of the Patent Laws
(3d ed. 1895)......................................................................... 12
In the Supreme Court of the United States
No. 16-1102
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., ET AL., PETITIONERS
v.
APPLE INC.

ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI

TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT

BRIEF FOR THE UNITED STATES AS AMICUS CURIAE

INTEREST OF THE UNITED STATES

This brief is filed in response to the Courts order in-
viting the Solicitor General to express the views of the
United States. In the view of the United States, the pe-
tition for a writ of certiorari should be denied.
STATEMENT
1. Under the Patent Act of 1952, 35 U.S.C. 101 et seq.,
the patentability of an invention generally is depend-
ent upon three explicit conditions: novelty and utility as
articulated and defined in 101 and 102, and non-
obviousness * * * , as set out in 103. Graham v. John
Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 12 (1966). Section 103 provides
that a patent cannot be obtained if the differences be-
tween the claimed invention and the prior art are such
that the claimed invention as a whole would have been
obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed
invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to
which the claimed invention pertains. 35 U.S.C. 103(a).

(1)
2

Section 103 codifies the longstanding principle that a

new and useful invention is not patentable unless it em-
bodies a degree of skill and ingenuity beyond that of
an ordinary mechanic acquainted with the business.
Hotchkiss v. Greenwood, 52 U.S. (11 How.) 248, 267
(1851); see Graham, 383 U.S. at 11-18.
A patentee shall have remedy by civil action for in-
fringement of his patent. 35 U.S.C. 281. In general,
whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell,
or sells any patented invention, within the United
States * * * during the term of the patent therefor, in-
fringes the patent. 35 U.S.C. 271(a). To prove in-
fringement, a patentee must demonstrate that the ac-
cused device satisfies each element of the asserted pa-
tent claim. See Limelight Networks, Inc. v. Akamai
Technologies, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2111, 2117 (2014).
The defendant may raise an affirmative defense that
the asserted patent claim is invalid, including on the
ground that the claim is obvious. 35 U.S.C. 282(b)(2). A
patent is presumed valid, 35 U.S.C. 282(a), and the de-
fendant must prove invalidity by clear and convincing
evidence, Microsoft Corp. v. i4i Ltd. Pship, 564 U.S. 91,
95 (2011). A prevailing patentee is entitled to damages
adequate to compensate for the infringement, 35 U.S.C.
284, and to injunctive relief if warranted in accordance
with the principles of equity, 35 U.S.C. 283; see eBay
Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388 (2006).
2. Petitioners and respondent compete directly in
the market for smartphones. Pet. App. 168a. Re-
spondent brought suit in the United States District
Court for the Northern District of California, alleging
that petitioners smartphones infringed several of its
utility patents. As relevant here, respondent asserted
infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 8,046,721 (the slide-
3

to-unlock patent), related to a touchscreen device that

a user can unlock by sliding an image across the screen;
8,074,172 (the word-correction patent), related to a
method of correcting spelling errors when entering text
in a smartphone; and 5,946,647 (the quick-links pa-
tent), related to a method of detecting certain data
structures, such as phone numbers, within a body of
text and converting them to useful links. Petitioners
defended on the grounds, inter alia, that the slide-to-
unlock and word-correction patents were invalid as ob-
vious and that their smartphones did not infringe the
quick-links claim. The case was tried to a jury, and both
sides presented expert testimony.
a. With respect to the validity of the slide-to-unlock
patent, petitioners expert testified that two prior-art
references (Neonode and Plaisant) together disclosed
every element of the claim, and that combining the two
would be very routine. Pet. App. 237a-238a. Respond-
ents expert, by contrast, testified that Neonode did not
disclose key features of its invention; that Plaisant
was addressed to a wall-mounted touchscreen for con-
trolling home appliances; and that, in the experts opin-
ion, a person of ordinary skill in the art would not have
looked to such a device to address the pocket dialing
problem specific to mobile devices. Id. at 239a-240a.
Respondent also highlighted secondary evidence of
nonobviousness. Cf. Graham, 383 U.S. at 17. This in-
cluded petitioners internal documents praising re-
spondents slide-to-unlock feature as a [c]reative way[]
of solving [user interface] complexity, and recommend-
ing that petitioners copy it. Pet. App. 242a-243a (first
and second set of brackets in original). Respondent also
presented evidence of a long-felt need to solve the
pocket-dialing problem. Id. at 243a. And respondent
4

presented evidence of industry praise, including a

video of an audience cheering when Steve Jobs, re-
spondents Chief Executive Officer at the time, first
demonstrated the slide-to-unlock feature to the public.
Id. at 242a.
b. With respect to the word-correction patent, peti-
tioners expert testified that two prior-art references
(Robinson and Xrgomics) together disclosed every ele-
ment of the claim, and that a person of ordinary skill in
the art would have combined them. Pet. App. 257a. Re-
spondents expert testified, inter alia, that Xrgomics
did not disclose replacing the text in the document be-
cause it merely completed partially-typed words and
did not replace anything. Ibid.
c. With respect to the alleged infringement of the
quick-links patent, the parties experts disputed, inter
alia, whether petitioners software used an analyzer
server, an element of respondents claim. Pet. App.
228a-230a.
3. The parties elected to have the case submitted to
a jury to render a general verdict. As relevant here,
petitioners did not object to the jury instructions. See
App., infra, 1a-5a (reproducing obviousness instructions).
The jury found infringement of all three patents and re-
turned a verdict for respondent.
Petitioners moved for judgment as a matter of law,
and the district court denied the motion in relevant part.
Pet. App. 218a-290a. The court also denied respond-
ents motion for a permanent injunction. Id. at 291a-
359a. Applying the traditional four-factor test, the
court held that respondent had not demonstrated an ir-
reparable injury or that legal remedies would be inade-
quate. In particular, the court concluded that respond-
ent had not demonstrated that the patented features
5

drive consumer demand for petitioners infringing

smartphones. Id. at 327a.
4. Respondent appealed the district courts refusal
to grant a permanent injunction; petitioners appealed
the judgment entered on the jurys verdict. The appeals
were docketed separately and assigned to different pan-
els of the Federal Circuit. Both panels reversed.
a. With respect to the injunction, a divided panel of
the court of appeals held that, in a case involving
phones with hundreds of thousands of available fea-
tures, it was legal error for the district court to effec-
tively require [respondent] to prove that the infringe-
ment was the sole cause of the lost downstream sales.
Pet. App. 170a. Rather, [t]he district court should have
determined whether the record established that a
smartphone feature impacts customers purchasing de-
cisions. Ibid. To make this showing, the court of ap-
peals concluded, respondent was required to prove
some connection between the patented features and
the demand for the infringing products. Ibid. (citation
omitted). The court concluded that respondent had car-
ried this burden. Id. at 176a.
Chief Judge Prost dissented. She concluded that the
district court had not improperly required respondent
to show that the patented features were the sole or pre-
dominant driver of sales, but rather had applied the cor-
rect test and had found the evidence lacking. Pet. App.
203a-217a.
b. On petitioners appeal from the judgment on the
merits, a different Federal Circuit panel set aside the
jury verdict, concluding that the verdict was not sup-
ported by substantial evidence. The panel held that no
reasonable jury could find that the slide-to-unlock and
6

word-correction patents were not obvious in light of Ne-

onode plus Plaisant and Robinson plus Xrgomics. Pet.
App. 126a-147a. With respect to the quick-links patent,
the panel held that substantial evidence did not support
the jurys verdict that a software library routine could
be considered a server because that determination was
inconsistent with the plain meaning of the term
server. Id. at 117a-124a.
5. a. The Federal Circuit granted rehearing en banc
of the panels decision reversing the jury verdict, and it
issued a new decision upholding the verdict. Pet. App.
1a-55a. The en banc majority stated that it had granted
rehearing to affirm our understanding of the appellate
function as limited to deciding the issues raised on ap-
peal by the parties, deciding these issues only on the
basis of the record made below, and as requiring appro-
priate deference be applied to the review of fact find-
ings. Id. at 4a.
With respect to the slide-to-unlock patent, the court
of appeals concluded that the jurys implicit finding of
nonobviousness was supported by substantial evidence,
including the conflicting expert testimony concerning
whether a person of skill in the art would have looked to
wall-mounted touchscreens to solve the problem of
pocket-dialing in touchscreen smartphones. Pet. App.
31a. The court further explained that substantial evi-
dence concerning secondary factorsindustry praise,
copying, commercial success, and long-felt need
supported the jurys determination. Id. at 32a-43a.
With respect to the word-correction patent, the court
of appeals likewise concluded that the jurys verdict was
supported by expert testimony that the prior art did not
disclose all of the elements of respondents claim, and
7

that this determination was further supported by sec-

ondary evidence in the form of surveys, petitioners in-
ternal documents, and comments from carriers. Pet.
App. 52a-53a.
Finally, with respect to the quick-links patent, the
court of appeals explained that the claim required an
analyzer server, which the court had previously de-
fined as a server routine separate from a client that re-
ceives data having structures from the client. Pet.
App. 15a (citation omitted). The court held that, in light
of conflicting expert testimony as to whether a shared
software library was separate in the relevant sense,
substantial evidence supported the jurys verdict. Id.
at 15a-17a.
b. Chief Judge Prost and Judges Dyk and Reyna
dissented. Chief Judge Prost argued that the majority
had misapplie[d] the substantial evidence standard of
review by finding evidence in the record when there
is none. Pet. App. 57a.
Judge Dyk objected to the en banc procedure. Pet.
App. 79a-82a. He also argued that the en banc majority
had turn[ed] the legal question of obviousness into a
factual issue for a jury to resolve, id. at 82a-84a; had
erroneously required evidence of a specific motivation
to combine prior-art references, id. at 85a; had disre-
garded the relevance of advances in other devices, id. at
87a-91a; and had given too much weight to secondary
considerations, id. at 91a-94a. With respect to the
quick-links patent, he would have held that the shared
library code could not be a separate server, even if
stored in separate memory. Id. at 97a-101a.
Judge Reyna also objected to the en banc procedure,
stating that en banc review was inappropriate, particu-
larly without argument and briefing. Pet. App. 103a-
8

107a. He further concluded that the majority had mis-

applied substantial-evidence review. Id. at 108a-109a.
DISCUSSION
Petitioners contend that the Federal Circuit should
have reviewed de novo the jurys ultimate determina-
tion that petitioners had failed to establish their defense
of obviousness. Petitioners further contend that the
Federal Circuit gave too much weight to secondary evi-
dence of nonobviousness and departed from this Courts
guidance in KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550
U.S. 398 (2007). Petitioners agreed to seek a general
jury verdict in this case, however, and did not object to
the jury instructions on obviousness. In the absence of
an objection to the instructions, the court of appeals cor-
rectly reviewed the jurys verdict deferentially.
The court of appeals also correctly held, consistent
with eBay Inc. v. MercExchange L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388
(2006), that the propriety of a suitably tailored perma-
nent injunction did not depend on proof that the pa-
tented features were the sole cause of consumer de-
mand for petitioners infringing products. Finally, the
courts decision upholding the jurys verdict of infringe-
ment of the quick-links patent is entirely fact-bound and
raises no legal issue warranting this Courts review.
The petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied.
I. Petitioners Challenge To The Court of Appeals Obviousness
Ruling Does Not Warrant Review
Petitioners contend (Pet. 21-24) that the Federal
Circuit incorrectly treated aspects of the obviousness
inquiry as factual rather than legal and therefore gave
unwarranted deference to the jurys resolution of a le-
gal question. That argument misapprehends the proper
9

standard for review of a judgment entered on a jury ver-

dict. The parties tried to the jury, inter alia, the dis-
puted question whether petitioners had proved their af-
firmative defense of obviousness by clear and convinc-
ing evidence. Petitioners did not object to the jury in-
structions on that question, and the jury returned a gen-
eral verdict in respondents favor. The court of appeals
therefore correctly reviewed that verdictincluding
the jurys implicit finding that petitioners had failed to
establish their obviousness defenseonly for substan-
tial evidence. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a) and (b)(3). The
courts decision affirming the jurys verdict in turn is
highly fact-bound. Further review is not warranted.
1. Petitioners argument appears to rest on the
premise that juries decide only purely factual questions,
and that ultimate legal determinationsincluding
whether a patent claim is obvious, see KSR, 550 U.S.
at 427are always reserved for a court to decide de
novo. That premise reflects a misunderstanding of the
jurys role.
a. When a jury is empaneled, its role extends well
beyond that of mere factfinder. United States v.
Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 514 (1995). In criminal and civil
cases alike, juries are regularly called upon to decide
cases that involve[] the application of a legal standard.
Hana Fin., Inc. v. Hana Bank, 135 S. Ct. 907, 911 (2015)
(Hana). Indeed, the application-of-legal-standard-to-
fact sort of question . . . , commonly called a mixed
question of law and fact, has typically been resolved by
juries. Ibid. (quoting Gaudin, 515 U.S. at 512). The
jurys role is not merely to determine the facts, but to
apply the law to those facts and draw the ultimate con-
clusion. Gaudin, 515 U.S. at 514.
10

For example, a jury in a criminal case does not come

forth with findings of fact pertaining to each of the es-
sential elements, leaving it to the judge to apply the law
to those facts and render the ultimate verdict of guilty
or not guilty. Gaudin, 515 U.S. at 512-513. Rather,
the jury makes any factual findings and the ultimate de-
termination of whether they establish the defendants
guilt of the charged offense. Id. at 513. Similarly in tort
cases, the question whether the defendant has con-
formed to the standard of conduct required of him by
the law is for the jury. 2 Restatement (Second) of
Torts 328B cmt. g, at 154 (1965). Although custom-
arily regarded as a question of fact, answering that
question involves an application of the legal standard,
and to a considerable extent a decision as to its content
and meaning. Ibid.
In Hana, this Court recently applied this familiar
mode of judicial review in an intellectual-property case,
holding that, when a jury trial has been requested and
when the facts do not warrant entry of summary judg-
ment or judgment as a matter of law, the question of
trademark tacking must be decided by a jury. 135
S. Ct. at 911. To decide whether tacking is appropri-
ate in a particular case, the jury must compare an orig-
inal and a revised trademark and apply the governing
legal standardi.e., whether an ordinary purchaser or
consumer would view the marks as creating the same,
continuing commercial impression. Id. at 909. The
Court explained that this ultimate question was no dif-
ferent from other mixed questions that juries have tra-
ditionally resolved. Id. at 911.
b. This Court has applied the same mode of review
when reviewing patent-infringement cases involving a
jury, including when reviewing the issue of invalidity.
11

In Tucker v. Spalding, 80 U.S. (13 Wall.) 453 (1872), the

Court held that, in jury trials at law, the defense that a
patented invention was not novel was a question for the
jury. Id. at 455. The Court explained that, although
the principles by which the question must be decided
may be very largely propositions of law, it still remains
the essential nature of the jury trial that while the court
may on this mixed question of law and fact, lay down to
the jury the law which should govern them and may,
if they disregard instructions, set aside their verdict,
the ultimate response to the question must come from
the jury. Ibid.
This Court has repeatedly followed that approach in
jury cases at law involving a defense that a patent was
invalid because it was obvious (or, in the parlance of the
time, not inventive). In Keyes v. Grant, 118 U.S. 25
(1886), the Court reversed a decision granting a di-
rected verdict to the defendant on obviousness in a jury
trial on infringement, where there was conflicting evi-
dence about the significance of differences between a
claimed furnace and the prior art. Id. at 37. Applying
the ordinary approach to reviewing a directed verdict,
see id. at 36 (citing a negligence case, Randall v. Balti-
more & Ohio R.R., 109 U.S. 478 (1883)), the Court held
that there was evidence upon both sides of the issue
sufficient to require that it should be weighed and con-
sidered by the jury, id. at 37. And the Court stated
that, if obviousness had been submitted to the jury and
the verdict had been for the plaintiffs, it would not have
been the duty of the court to have it set aside as not
supported by sufficient evidence. Ibid.
Many other decisions reflect a similar approach.
E.g., United States v. Esnault-Pelterie, 299 U.S. 201, 205
& n.6 (1936) (stating that [v]alidity and infringement
12

are to be decided by the jury and collecting cases);

Thomson Spot Welder Co. v. Ford Motor Co., 265 U.S.
445, 446 (1924) (in an action at law for infringement,
the question of inventiveness is to be left to the deter-
mination of the jury); Bischoff v. Wethered, 76 U.S.
(9 Wall.) 812, 814-815 (1870) (similar where a patent
under consideration is attempted to be invalidated by a
prior patent); see also Mark A. Lemley, Why Do Juries
Decide If Patents Are Valid, 99 Va. L. Rev. 1673, 1674-
1718 (2013) (tracing involvement of juries in patent-
infringement suits); Albert H. Walker, Text-Book of the
Patent Laws 42, at 45 (3d ed. 1895) (jury makes ulti-
mate determination of obviousness); 3 William C. Rob-
inson, Law of Patents for Useful Inventions 1075,
at 373 (1890) (same). While these authorities predate
Section 103, that provision codifies judicial precedents
embracing the inventiveness requirement, Graham v.
John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17 (1966), and it contains no
hint that Congress intended to break from these prece-
dents regarding review of jury verdicts.
Accordingly, when a patent-infringement case is
tried to a jury and the defendant contends that the as-
serted claims are invalid as obvious, the district court
must resolve any disputes about how to articulate the
applicable legal standard and must lay down to the jury
the law which should govern them. Tucker, 80 U.S.
(13 Wall.) at 455. The court also may decline to submit
the issue to the jury if the evidence is such that no rea-
sonable jury could find the asserted claims invalid. See
Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a), 56(a) and (g); Hana, 135 S. Ct. at
911. But if the court does not resolve the issue on sum-
mary judgment or in a pre-verdict motion for judgment
as a matter of law, the question is submitted to the jury,
whose task is to assess the relevant evidence and apply
13

the governing legal standard (set forth in the courts in-

structions) to the facts as it finds them.
The proper way to address concerns that a jury may
improperly apply the relevant legal standard thus is
not to take the obviousness question away from the
jury, but to craft careful jury instructions that make
that standard clear. Hana, 135 S. Ct. at 911-912. If a
party makes a timely objection to those instructions, see
Fed. R. Civ. P. 51(c), then it will obtain de novo review
of the instructions given or refused. But if the instruc-
tions are correct or if no objection is preserved, the only
question for the court of appeals is whether, on the rec-
ord before the jury, a reasonable jury would * * *
have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the
[prevailing] party. Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a) and (b)(3).
c. Petitioners do not argue that questions regarding
the validity of a patent are categorically unsuitable for
determination by a jury. Petitioners contend (Pet. 21-
24), however, that an appellate court must conduct de
novo review of the jurys ultimate determination as to
obviousness (although not of any factual findings that
may underlie the jurys determination). This unusual
exception to usual appellate practice (which petitioners
would apparently limit to questions of obviousness)
finds no support in the Federal Rules of Civil or Appel-
late Procedure or in the Patent Act, and many of this
Courts decisions indicate that it does not exist. See pp.
9-12, supra.
Petitioners rely (Pet. 21-23) on the Courts state-
ment in KSR that [t]he ultimate judgment of obvious-
ness is a legal determination. 550 U.S. at 427. But the
KSR Court had no occasion to address the standard of
review that applies to a jury verdict addressing obvious-
ness because the district court in that case had granted
14

summary judgment. See id. at 413. The Court made

the statement on which petitioners rely in the course of
rejecting the argument that a conclusory affidavit
from an expert is sufficient to preclude summary judg-
ment on obviousness. See id. at 426-427. The Court ex-
plained that, where the content of the prior art, the
scope of the patent claim, and the level of ordinary skill
in the art are not in material dispute, and the obvious-
ness of the claim is apparent in light of these factors,
summary judgment is appropriate. Ibid. That state-
ment appears simply to reflect the Courts recognition
that a question of obviousness, like other contested is-
sues in federal civil litigation, can be resolved on sum-
mary judgment if a reasonable jury could decide the is-
sue in only one manner. Cf. Hana, 135 S. Ct. at 911.
The Courts recognition of that principle does not logi-
cally imply that the usual rules for reviewing jury ver-
dicts are subject to any obviousness exception. 1
2. a. Petitioners remaining contentions about obvi-
ousness likewise rest on a misapprehension of the gov-
erning standard of review. Petitioners assert, for ex-
ample, that the jurys rejection of their obviousness de-
fense was erroneous, Pet. 21-24, and that the Federal
Circuit created a new rule whereby a jury can disre-
gard prior art if it is embodied in a different device,

1
The Court in KSR relied on Graham, which states that the ul-
timate question of patent validity is one of law. 383 U.S. at 17. Gra-
ham similarly sheds little light on the standard for reviewing a jury
verdict on obviousness because it arose from bench trials. See id.
at 4-5. Although review of a jury verdict is uniformly deferential,
see Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a), deferential review after a bench trial ap-
plies only to findings of fact, and not to questions of law, see Fed. R.
Civ. P. 52(a)(6).
15

Pet. 24. But petitioners failed to object to the jury in-

structions on obviousness. The district court instructed
the jury, inter alia, that it could consider a prior-art ref-
erence like the Plaisant paper as pertinent for obvious-
ness purposes if the jury found that the reference was
in the same field as the claimed invention or [was] from
another field to which a person of ordinary skill in the
field would look to solve a known problem. App. infra,
3a. The court further instructed the jury that it could
consider whether the alleged infringer ha[d] identified
a reason that would have prompted a person of ordinary
skill in the field to combine the elements or concepts
from the prior art in the same way as in the claimed in-
vention. Id. at 4a.
In the absence of any preserved objection to these
instructions, the court of appeals properly reviewed the
jurys implicit finding on obviousnessi.e., that peti-
tioners had failed to establish obviousness by clear and
convincing evidenceonly to ensure that sufficient evi-
dence supported the verdict. In upholding the jurys
verdict under that deferential standard, the court ex-
plained that conflicting testimony was presented con-
cerning whether a person of skill in the art would have
been motivated to combine the toggle from a wall-
mounted touchscreen to solve the problem of pocket-
dialing in touchscreen smartphones, as well as the pro-
bative weight of various secondary considerations (such
as industry praise and commercial success). Pet. App.
31a; see id. at 31a-43a. The court likewise concluded
that substantial evidence supported the jurys implicit
finding that the invention claimed in respondents word-
correction patent was sufficiently distinct from prior-
art word-replacement and word-completion systems.
Id. at 52a-53a.
16

Contrary to petitioners contention, that mode of ap-

pellate review was wholly consistent with this Courts
decisions. The sufficiency-of-the-evidence question pre-
sented on appeal was a close one, and the court of ap-
peals may have erred in concluding that substantial ev-
idence supported aspects of the jurys verdict. But that
judgment is highly fact-bound and does not warrant this
Courts review.
b. Petitioners dispute (Pet. 26-28) the proper weight
that should be given to secondary considerations such
as commercial success, long felt but unsolved needs,
failure of others, etc. Graham, 383 U.S. at 17. But
again, petitioners did not object to the jury instructions
on this issue. After listing the Graham secondary con-
siderations, the district court cautioned the jury that,
[a]lthough you should consider any evidence of these
factors, the relevance and importance of any of them to
your decision on whether the claimed invention would
have been obvious is up to you. App., infra, 3a-4a (em-
phasis added). By failing to object to that instruction,
petitioners forfeited any argument that the jury was
permitted to ascribe too much weight to secondary con-
siderations.
c. Decisions in other cases give some reason for con-
cern that the Federal Circuit may be drifting back to-
ward rigid and mandatory formulas of the type this
Court rejected in KSR, 550 U.S. at 419. The Federal
Circuit has asserted, for example, that a showing of ob-
viousness requires finding both that a skilled artisan
would have been motivated to combine the teachings of
the prior art . . . and that the skilled artisan would have
had a reasonable expectation of success in doing so.
In re Stepan Co., No. 2016-1811, 2017 WL 3648528, at
*2 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 25, 2017) (emphases added) (quoting
17

Intelligent Bio-Sys., Inc. v. Illumina Cambridge Ltd.,

821 F.3d 1359, 1367-1368 (Fed. Cir. 2016)) (reversing
the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices determination
of obviousness for failure to make these specific find-
ings, and rejecting as inadequate the agencys explana-
tion that, in the technical field at issue, the claimed in-
vention would result from the routine optimization of
known parameters). That mandatory two-part inquiry
is at least in tension with KSRs admonition that, while
it can be important to identify reasons why a skilled
artisan would have combined elements in the prior art,
such insights need not become rigid and mandatory
formulas; and when it is so applied, the [Federal Cir-
cuits approach] is incompatible with our precedents.
550 U.S. at 418-419; see id. at 420-422.
If the Federal Circuit continues to develop and en-
force rigid rules for demonstrating obviousness, this
Courts review may ultimately be warranted. This
case, however, would be an unsuitable vehicle for ad-
dressing that issue. Because petitioners did not pre-
serve any objection that the jury instructions conflicted
with KSR, the case does not provide the Court an op-
portunity to clarify the legal standards that should
guide judges and juries in making obviousness deter-
minations.
II. Petitioners Challenge To The Court Of Appeals Standard
For Patent Injunctions Does Not Warrant Review
Petitioners contend (Pet. 28-31) that the court of ap-
peals departed from this Courts decision in eBay by
significantly lowering the bar for patent injunctions.
That argument lacks merit.
Under the Patent Act, district courts have discretion
in accordance with the principles of equity to prevent
the violation of any right secured by patent, on such
18

terms as the court deems reasonable. 35 U.S.C. 283.

If a defendant is found to have infringed the plaintiffs
patent, the district court should determine the propri-
ety of injunctive relief using the traditional four-factor
test that governs injunctions in other areas of the law.
eBay, 547 U.S. at 391.
In this case, the district court denied respondents
request for a permanent injunction on the ground that
respondent had failed to show that the patented fea-
tures drive consumer demand for petitioners infring-
ing smartphones. Pet. App. 327a. The court of appeals
explained that this test was too restrictive: [I]n a case
involving phones with hundreds of thousands of availa-
ble features, it was legal error for the district court to
effectively require [respondent] to prove that the in-
fringement was the sole cause of the lost downstream
sales. Id. at 170a. The appropriate question, the court
of appeals concluded, was whether respondent had
demonstrated some connection between the patented
features and the demand for the infringing products.
Ibid. (citation omitted). The court explained that this
connection may be shown in a variety of ways, such
as through evidence that a patented feature is one of
several features that cause consumers to make their
purchasing decisions, evidence that the inclusion of a
patented feature makes a product significantly more de-
sirable, and evidence that the absence of a patented
feature would make a product significantly less desira-
ble. Id. at 170a n.1 (citations omitted).
Although the phrase some connection may be infe-
licitous, the court of appeals correctly held that a pre-
vailing patentee who seeks injunctive relief is not re-
quired to show that a patented feature is the exclusive
19

driver of consumer demand for a multi-featured prod-

uct. Petitioners contend (Pet. 29) that requiring any-
thing less would make patent injunctions available
even in the absence of a causal nexus to irreparable
harm. But general principles of legal causation do not
require sole causation. For example, [i]n order that a
negligent actor may be liable for harm resulting to an-
other from his conduct, it is only necessary that it be a
legal cause of the harm. It is not necessary that it be
the cause, using the word the as meaning the sole and
even the predominant cause. 2 Restatement (Second)
of Torts 430, cmt. d, at 428; see W. Page Keeton et al.,
Prosser and Keeton on the Law of Torts 41, at 263
(5th ed. 1984) (some reasonable connection between
the act or omission of the defendant and the damage
which the plaintiff has suffered).
To be sure, the strength of the connection between
the defendants infringement and the plaintiffs harm is
relevant to the determination whether injunctive relief
is warranted. As the Federal Circuit correctly ex-
plained, the fact that an infringing feature is not the
only cause of lost sales may well lessen the weight of
any alleged irreparable harm. Pet. App. 170a. This
measured approach allows courts to take into account
all relevant circumstances in a particular case, including
both the fact that the patented feature is only part of a
multi-component device and the fact that the infringe-
ment still causes some amount of lost sales. Under pe-
titioners approach, by contrast, the presence of addi-
tional sales drivers would be a binary on-off switch,
making injunctions categorically unavailable whenever
infringement is not the primary or sole driver of lost
sales. That would make injunctions particularly diffi-
20

cult to obtain in cases involving multi-component de-

vices, even in a suit between direct competitors where
an infringing feature of the defendants product is a sig-
nificant (but not the only) driver of sales and all the
other factors strongly favor an injunction.
This case illustrates the merit of the Federal Cir-
cuits approach. Although the evidence may not make
a strong case of irreparable harm, Pet. App. 182a, peti-
tioners are respondents biggest rival, its fiercest com-
petitor; respondent established that customers
wanted, preferred, and would pay extra for [the infring-
ing] features; petitioners believed these features
were important; and the lost sales were very difficult
to calculate. Id. at 176a-177a. The injunction was nar-
rowly tailored to apply only to the patented features,
and not to petitioners smartphones as a whole. Id.
at 179a. Moreover, petitioners assured the jury that
design-arounds to the infringing features would be sim-
ple or already exist, and respondent established that
petitioners could remove the patented features with-
out recalling any products or disrupting customer use
of its products. Id. at 179a, 182a. The court of appeals
therefore did not err in ordering entry of the tailored
injunction here.
III. Petitioners Challenge To The Finding Of Infringement
Of The Quick-Links Patent Does Not Warrant Review
Petitioners contend (Pet. 24-28) that the court of ap-
peals erred in affirming the jurys verdict that petition-
ers had infringed the quick-links patenta finding that
accounted for nearly $100 million in damages. See Pet.
31. Petitioners contend that this decision conflicts with
the all-elements rule, i.e., the principle that infringe-
ment occurs only when an accused device embodies all
elements of the asserted patent claim. Pet. 34. But the
21

court of appeals did not hold that infringement could be

proved without satisfying all elements of the claim; it
simply sustained the jurys infringement verdict on sub-
stantial-evidence review. The parties disputed whether
petitioners accused devices satisfied the requirement
of the quick-links patent that the devices contain an an-
alyzer server, Pet. App. 9a, and the court held that sub-
stantial evidence supported the jurys verdict of in-
fringement, id. at 15a. Petitioners fact-bound chal-
lenge to that ruling does not warrant further review.
Petitioners contend (Pet. 32-34) that the court of ap-
peals did not discuss all of petitioners arguments on
this matter. But a court may consider[] every detail
of the briefs and record without finding it necessary to
mention many of those details or to protract [its] judg-
ment to an equal length. Colombia v. Cauca Co., 190
U.S. 524, 532 (1903). In any event, as petitioners seem
to recognize (Pet. 31), the question whether the court
correctly upheld the jurys verdict as to the analyzer
server limitation is not a legal issue worthy of this
Courts review. Petitioners argument on this point also
is not intertwined with the other questions presented in
the petition, but instead is a freestanding attack on the
validity of a jury verdict in a single case. Further re-
view is not warranted.
22
CONCLUSION
The petition for a writ of certiorari should be denied.
Respectfully submitted.
NOEL J. FRANCISCO
Solicitor General
CHAD A. READLER
NATHAN K. KELLEY Acting Assistant Attorney
Solicitor General
THOMAS W. KRAUSE MALCOLM L. STEWART
Deputy Solicitor Deputy Solicitor General
SARAH E. CRAVEN ZACHARY D. TRIPP
LORE A. UNT Assistant to the Solicitor
MICHAEL S. FORMAN General
Associate Solicitors MARK R. FREEMAN
United States Patent and DANA KAERSVANG
Trademark Office Attorneys
OCTOBER 2017
APPENDIX

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
SAN JOSE DIVISION

Case No.: 12-CV-00630-LHK

APPLE, INC., A CALIFORNIA CORPORATION,
PLAINTIFF AND COUNTERDEFENDANT
v.
SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD., A KOREAN
CORPORATION; SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA, INC.,
A NEW YORK CORPORATION; AND SAMSUNG
TELECOMMUNICATIONS AMERICA, LLC,
A DELAWARE LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY,
DEFENDANTS AND COUNTERCLAIMANTS

Filed: Apr. 28, 2014

FINAL JURY INSTRUCTIONS

IT IS SO ORDERED.
DATED: APR. 27, 2014

/s/ LUCY H. KOH

LUCY H. KOH
United States District Judge

(1a)
2a

* * * * *
FINAL JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 34
PATENTSOBVIOUSNESS
Not all innovations are patentable. A patent claim is
invalid if the claimed invention would have been obvious
to a person of ordinary skill in the field at the time of
invention. This means that even if all of the requirements
of the claim cannot be found in a single prior art refer-
ence that would anticipate the claim or constitute a stat-
utory bar to that claim, a person of ordinary skill in the
field who knew about all this prior art would have come
up with the claimed invention.
The ultimate conclusion of whether a claim is obvious
should be based upon your determination of several fac-
tual decisions.
First, you must decide the level of ordinary skill in the
field that someone would have had at the time the
claimed invention was made. In deciding the level of or-
dinary skill, you should consider all the evidence intro-
duced at trial, including:
(1) the levels of education and experience of per-
sons working in the field;
(2) the types of problems encountered in the field;
and
(3) the sophistication of the technology.
Second, you must decide the scope and content of the
prior art. The parties disagree as to whether certain
prior art references should be included in the prior art
you use to decide the validity of claims at issue. In order
to be considered as prior art to a particular patent at
issue here, these references must be reasonably related
3a

to the claimed invention of that patent. A reference is

reasonably related if it is in the same field as the
claimed invention or is from another field to which a
person of ordinary skill in the field would look to solve
a known problem.
Third, you must decide what differences, if any, existed
between the claimed invention and the prior art.
Finally, you should consider any of the following factors
that you find have been shown by the evidence:
(1) commercial success of a product due to the
merits of the claimed invention;
(2) a long felt need for the solution provided by the
claimed invention;
(3) unsuccessful attempts by others to find the so-
lution provided by the claimed invention;
(4) copying of the claimed invention by others;
(5) unexpected and superior results from the
claimed invention;
(6) acceptance by others of the claimed invention
as shown by praise from others in the field or
from the licensing of the claimed invention; and
(7) independent invention of the claimed invention
by others before or at about the same time as
the named inventor thought of it.
The presence of any of factors 1-6 may be considered by
you as an indication that the claimed invention would not
have been obvious at the time the claimed invention was
made, and the presence of factor 7 may be considered
by you as an indication that the claimed invention would
have been obvious at such time. Although you should
4a

consider any evidence of these factors, the relevance

and importance of any of them to your decision on
whether the claimed invention would have been obvious
is up to you.
A patent claim composed of several elements is not
proved obvious merely by demonstrating that each of
its elements was independently known in the prior art.
In evaluating whether such a claim would have been ob-
vious, you may consider whether the alleged infringer has
identified a reason that would have prompted a person
of ordinary skill in the field to combine the elements or
concepts from the prior art in the same way as in the
claimed invention. There is no single way to define the
line between true inventiveness on the one hand (which
is patentable) and the application of common sense and
ordinary skill to solve a problem on the other hand
(which is not patentable). For example, market forces
or other design incentives may be what produced a
change, rather than true inventiveness. You may con-
sider whether the change was merely the predictable
result of using prior art elements according to their
known functions, or whether it was the result of true in-
ventiveness. You may also consider whether there is
some teaching or suggestion in the prior art to make the
modification or combination of elements claimed in the
patent. Also, you may consider whether the innovation
applies a known technique that had been used to im-
prove a similar device or method in a similar way. You
may also consider whether the claimed invention would
have been obvious to try, meaning that the claimed in-
novation was one of a relatively small number of possi-
ble approaches to the problem with a reasonable expec-
tation of success by those skilled in the art. However,
you must be careful not to determine obviousness using
5a

the benefit of hindsight; many true inventions might

seem obvious after the fact. You should put yourself in
the position of a person of ordinary skill in the field at
the time the claimed invention was made and you should
not consider what is known today or what is learned from
the teaching of the patent.

* * * * *