IP Law Daily, PATENT—D. Mass.: Two computing-system patents survive dismissal in Egenera’s suit against Cisco, (Feb 15, 2017)

By Mark Engstrom, J.D.

In a patent infringement suit that Egenera brought against Cisco Systems, two of the three asserted patents for an improved "enterprise computing system" claimed patent-eligible subject matter, the federal district court in Boston has ruled. The third patent was invalid as abstract (Egenera, Inc. v. Cisco Systems, Inc., February 14, 2017, Stearns, R.).

Egenera sued Cisco for the infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,971,044 ("Service Cluster and Method in a Processing System with Failover Capability"); 7,231,430 ("Reconfigurable, Virtual Processing System Cluster, Network, and Method"); and 7,1178,059 ("Disaster Recovery for Processing Resources Using Configurable Deployment Platform"). The ’044 and ’430 patents were directed to solving problems in configuring, deploying, and maintaining enterprise and application servers by creating a "processing platform from which virtual systems may be deployed through configuration commands." The ’059 patent was directed to a disaster recovery system that could be configured to mimic the topology of a failed primary system.

The ’044 and ’430 patents. According to the court, the ’430 and ’044 patents were directed to the solution of a "real" problem by creating an innovative processing platform with a positive result: an improved enterprise computing system. The court acknowledged that a "virtual computer network" could be seen from twenty thousand feet as merely a logical group of resources within a physically connected group of resources, but found that the ’430 and ’044 patents did not claim a virtual network and did not monopolize the underlying idea.

The ’430 patent was directed to a computing platform that was capable of "automatically deploying at least one virtual processing area network" with a specified topology, the court noted, and the ’044 patent was directed to a computer platform that could substitute for a failed processor of a virtual network without having to physically replace the processor itself. The fact that certain aspects of the functionality of the claimed platforms were specified through programming logic was not an impediment to subject matter eligibility, the court explained.

Further, the recitation of hardware components and their connections in the descriptions of the physical composition of the computing platform (in Claim 1 of the ’430 patent) was not a situation in which general-purpose computer components were added "post-hoc" to a fundamental economic practice or mathematical equation." Significantly, Claim 1 required the components of the system to perform specialized functions to accomplish the stated goal.

In the court’s view, Claim 1 of the ’430 patent offered a useful, non-conventional, and non-generic arrangement of components and functionality (i.e, a unique arrangement of networked processors and control nodes with messaging, mapping, and Ethernet emulation functions) that were "directed to a specific implementation of a solution to a problem."

Ultimately, Cisco failed to show that the combination of hardware and functionality that was taught by the ’430 and ’044 patents was either conventional or generic at the time of invention, according to the court. In fact, the claimed processing platform presented an improvement in computer functionality. In addition to expediting system deployment, the platform removed a system’s dependence on specific physical connections between processors while maintaining the desired performance. Moreover, the ability to automatically deploy a virtual processing area network provided a level of efficiency, flexibility, and scalability that was not available in a manually cabled system. Because the ’430 and ’044 patents were directed to systems that improved computer functionality, they claimed patent-eligible subject matter, the court concluded.

The ’059 patent. The claims of the ’059 patent were disclosed at a level of generality that was indistinguishable from the underlying abstract idea, the court decided. The key functionality of Claim 10 of the ’059 patent—"logic to generate software commands to the configurable platform to deploy processing resources corresponding to the specification"—was claimed in functional terms that restated the goal of the invention and contained no restriction on how the result was accomplished, the court explained, and the inclusion of the processing area network limitations did not, as Egenera argued, impart the necessary inventive concept.

In the court’s view, the claim limitations of the ’059 patent did not correspond to a physical or functional aspect of the described system. The coupling of a generic step of setting up a disaster recovery backup site with a system capable of deploying processing area networks did nothing more than implement an abstract idea in a particular technological environment.

The case is No. 16-11613-RGS.

Attorneys: Avery R. Williams (McKool Smith Hennigan, P.C.) for Egenera, Inc. Brian Leary (Desmarais LLP) for Cisco Systems, Inc.

Companies: Egenera, Inc.; Cisco Systems, Inc.

Cases: Patent TechnologyInternet MassachusettsNews