Order Granting Motion For Preliminary Injunction - United States ...

United States District Court
For the Northern District of California
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Apple’s expert Dr. Nathaniel Polish identifies eight different default search areas of the
Quick Search Box that he asserts are the requisite “heuristic modules”: (1) Google: Google Search
suggestions; (2) Apps: Names of installed applications; (3) Books: Books in your library; (4)
Browser: Bookmarks and web history; (5) Messaging: Text in your message; (6) Music: Artists,
albums and tracks; (7) People: Names of your contacts; and (8) Videos: Rented movies. See Polish
Decl. 61. Dr. Polish’s infringement analysis focuses on only three of these eight modules: (1)
Google search; (2) People; and (3) Browser history. Dr. Polish asserts that these three search
modules satisfy the disputed limitation of claim 6 because they “map exactly to the examples in the
patent specification.” Polish Reply Decl. 21; see also Polish Decl. 66. Specifically, Apple
asserts that “the Browser module . . . implements the heuristic module described in the patent
specification as ‘[a] third module 223 [that] can maintain a list of the files, applications and web
sites which were most recently accessed, and search this list for a match.’ The People module . . .
implements the heuristic module described in the patent specification as ‘[a] second module 222
[that] may index and search the contents of files on the local and/or network storage volumes.’
Lastly, the Google module . . . implements the heuristic module described in the patent
specification as, [y]et another module [that] might employ a search engine to locate Internet web
pages which match the user input.’” Polish Reply Decl. 22 (alterations in original) (quoting ’604
Patent 4:17-23). Apple further asserts that the Galaxy Nexus infringes every element of claim 19
of the ’604 Patent because the Quick Search Box begins to provide search results as the user’s
information descriptor is incrementally inputted. See Polish Decl. 76.
The Court agrees with Samsung that Apple cannot rely on the mere fact that, for example,
the Browser module “can maintain a list of the files, applications and web sites which were most
recently accessed, and search this list for a match.” Polish Reply Decl. 22. As discussed above
in the Court’s claim construction analysis, the sheer fact that the Browser module “search[es] this
list for a match” reveals nothing about how it searches, i.e., whether it searches heuristically or not.
As Apple’s own expert admits, it is possible to search a “heuristic module” in a non-heuristic
manner. See Posner Decl. Ex. E [Polish Dep.] at 106:19-25. Samsung argues that, even as to the
three modules Dr. Polish analyzed, Dr. Polish failed to identify that any of them employed
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Case No.: 12-cv-00630-LHK
ORDER GRANTING MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION