Adaptive Spectrum and Signal Alignment Inc. v British Telecommunications Plc
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | The Hon. Mr Justice Birss,Mr Justice Birss |
| Judgment Date | 03 December 2013 |
| Neutral Citation | [2013] EWHC 3768 (Pat) |
| Court | Chancery Division (Patents Court) |
| Docket Number | Case No: HC 11 C04102 |
| Date | 03 December 2013 |
[2013] EWHC 3768 (Pat)
The Hon. Mr Justice Birss
Case No: HC 11 C04102
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
CHANCERY DIVISION
PATENTS COURT
The Rolls Building
7 Rolls Buildings
Fetter Lane
London EC4A 1NL
Iain Purvis QC and Joe Delaney (instructed by Wragge & Co LLP) for the Claimant
Roger Wyand QC and Hugo Cuddigan (instructed by Bird & Bird LLP) for the Defendant
Hearing dates: 23 rd to 25 th October 2013 30 th October to 1 st November 2013 5 th November 2013
Approved Judgment
I direct that pursuant to CPR PD 39A para 6.1 no official shorthand note shall be taken of this Judgment and that copies of this version as handed down may be treated as authentic.
| Topic | Paragraphs |
| Introduction | 1 |
| The issues | 3 |
| Background | 14 |
| Witnesses | 46 |
| Person skilled in the art | 51 |
| Common general knowledge | 52 |
| The 495 patent | 58 |
| 495 Claim construction | 64 |
| 495 Infringement | 103 |
| 495 Novelty (Hendrichs) | 127 |
| 495 Obviousness | 142 |
| 145 |
| 152 |
| 161 |
| Conclusion on the 495 patent | 194 |
| The 790 patent | 195 |
| 790 Claim construction | 200 |
| 790 Infringement | 226 |
| 790 Obviousness | 261 |
| Overall conclusion | 267 |
Introduction
In this action the claimant (ASSIA) contends that the defendant (BT) has infringed two of its European patents (UK). The first is EP (UK) 2,259,495 entitled "Adaptive DSL margin and band control using historical operational data" with an earliest claimed priority date of 7 th December 2003, a filing date of 2 nd December 2004 and a date of grant of 9 th November 2011. The second is EP (UK) 1,869,790 entitled "DSL state and line profile control" with an earliest claimed priority date of 3 rd March 2005, a filing date of 28 th February 2006 and a date of grant of 23 rd May 2012. The defendant denies infringement and contends that the patents are invalid.
The claimant is represented by Iain Purvis QC and Joe Delaney instructed by Wragge & Co and the defendant is represented by Roger Wyand QC and Hugo Cuddigan instructed by Bird & Bird.
The Issues
Both patents relate to methods for controlling the way in which a digital subscriber line (DSL) operates. The term DSL is an umbrella term that refers to various ways of sending digital information over telephone lines. A well known DSL technology is Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) that is used by many communications providers to supply broadband internet access to consumers. The infringement claim relates to the operation of the BT Dynamic Line Management System (the DLM System) which is responsible for controlling the operation of the DSL lines that make up BT's broadband access network. In particular it concerns the operation of a device in the BT DLM system known as the Rate Adaptive Monitoring Box (RAMBo) which monitors and controls various parameters of the DSL lines connected to multiple telephone exchanges.
BT's DLM system operates on three networks known as 20CN, 21CN and NGA. These refer to BT's "20 th Century Network", "21 st Century Network", and "Next Generation Access" network. There are separate RAMBos for each of these networks and each operates differently. The underlying type of DSL technology used on each of those networks varies. 20CN is an ADSL1 network, 21CN is an ADSL 2/2+ network and NGA is a VDSL2 network. The expressions ADSL 1, ADSL2, ADSL 2+ and VDSL refer to different types of ADSL system governed by different standards. The relevant standards are promulgated by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).
The acts of alleged infringement are the making, keeping and use by BT of the DLM system and in particular the RAMBo elements and the use and offer for use of the method used in the DLM system to control BT's DSL lines.
The only claims which I need to be concerned with are the ones which ASSIA contends are independently valid and are infringed by BT. These are:
a) In the 495 patent, claims 1, 6, 8 and 15;
b) In the 790 patent, claims 1, 10 and 13.
ASSIA contends that BT's 20CN and 21CN networks infringe claims 1, 8 and 15 of the 495 patent. ASSIA does not contend that BT's 20CN or 21CN networks infringe any of the other independently valid claims of either patent.
ASSIA contends that BT's NGA system infringes claims 1, 6, 8 and 15 of the 495 patent and claims 1, 10 and 13 of the 790 patent.
BT denies all these infringement allegations.
In relation to validity, BT contends that claim 1 of the 495 patent lacks novelty over United States Patent number 6,587,502 (Hendrichs) which was published on 1 st July 2003. BT also contends that claims 1, 6, 8 and 15 of the 495 patent are obvious over three references. They are Hendrichs, European Patent Application 1,337,062 A2 (Rahamim) which was published on 20 th August 2003, and an article appearing in the IEEE Communications magazine in September 2003 entitled "Advanced DSL Management" by Kenneth Kerpez and others (Kerpez).
In relation to the 790 patent BT contends that claims 1, 10 and 13 of the 790 patent are obvious over Hendrichs and over US patent 6,266,348 published on 24 th July 2001 (Gross). At an earlier stage in these proceedings BT also relied on two further references against the 790 patent. One was International Application PCT/US 2006/001131 published as WO 2006/076518 A2 (Wu) which was relied on for lack of novelty under section 2(3) of the 1977 Act (article 54(3) EPC). The other was US 6,567,464 (Hamdi) which was relied on for obviousness. Both were dropped during trial.
The relevant claims of the 495 patent are:
1. A method in a controller communicably attached with a Digital Subscriber Line modem pair, the method comprising:
collecting operational data from the DSL modem pair, wherein the operational data comprises current operational data and historical operational data;
analyzing at least a portion of the collected operational data;
generating a margin-related parameter set based on the operational data analyzed; and
instructing the DSL modem pair to operate in accordance with the generated margin-related parameter set.
6. The method of Claim 1, wherein analyzing the operational data comprises determining what margin-related parameter value will cause the DSL modem pair to meet a performance target or target threshold.
8. The method of claim 1, wherein analysing at least the portion of the collected operational data comprises one or more operations selected from the group consisting of:
comparing a current margin related parameter value of the DSL modem pair represented within the current operational data against a corresponding threshold to determine whether a target value is met; and
comparing a historical margin-related parameter value of DSL modem pair represented within the historical operational data against a corresponding threshold to determine whether a target value is met.
15. A controller to monitor a plurality of Digital Subscriber Line Modem pairs, wherein the controller comprises:
a collection module to collect operational data from at least one DSL modem pair, wherein the operational data comprises current operational data and historical operational data;
an analysis module coupled with a connection module to analyse at least a portion of the collected operational data;
an instruction signal generation module coupled with the analysis module,
wherein the instruction signal generation module is to generate a margin-related parameter set based on the analysis and wherein the instruction signal or generation module to instruct one or more of the DSL modem pairs to operate in accordance with the margin-related parameter set.
The relevant claims of the 790 patent are:
1. A method in a DSL controller coupled to a DSL line, the method comprising:
operating the DSL line in the current line profile;
collecting operational data relating to operation of the DSL line in the current line profile;
evaluating whether to transition operation of a DSL line from a current line profile to one of a plurality of target line profiles by implementing in hardware or software or a combination thereof:
a profile state transition matrix indicating: a plurality of possible transitions from the current line profile to one of the plurality of target line profiles, and a priority value specifying the priority of transitions for each profile,
a plurality of sub-rules, each to evaluate a feasibility or infeasibility of the plurality of target line profiles within the profile state transition matrix,
a plurality of threshold tables, wherein each of the plurality of threshold tables emphasize or de-emphasize the individual sub-rules, and
overall rule that utilizes the one or more sub-rules to determine the feasibility or infeasibility for each of the plurality of target line profiles, wherein the plurality of sub-rules and the overall rule are based on reported and estimated data from the collected operational data;
determining the feasibility or infeasibility of the current line profile and each of the plurality of target line profiles based on the collected operational data and dependent on the outputs from some or all of the sub-rules and the overall rule; and
selecting a one of the plurality of target line profiles in which to operate the DSL line, wherein the selected line profile comprises whichever of the current line profile and the plurality of target line profiles has a highest priority in the profile state transition matrix, and is not evaluated to be infeasible; and
operating the DSL line in the selected profile.
10. The method claim 1 further comprising adaptively updating at least one of the following:
the profile state transition matrix;
at least...
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