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FACEBOOK, INC., Respondent No. 19-1323 IN THE Supreme Courtd of the United States B.E. TECHNOLOGY, LLC, Petitioner, —v.— FACEBOOK, INC., Respondent. ON PETITION FOR A WRIT OF CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT BRIEF IN OPPOSITION ORION ARMON HEIDI L. KEEFE COOLEY LLP Counsel of Record 380 Interlocken Crescent, COOLEY LLP Suite 900 3175 Hanover Street Broomfield, Colorado 80021 Palo Alto, California 94304 (650) 843-5000 EMILY E. TERRELL [email protected] COOLEY LLP 1229 Pennsylvania Avenue, Suite 700 Washington, DC 20004 Counsel for Respondent September 17, 2020 i QUESTION PRESENTED Whether the court of appeals correctly affirmed that Facebook was the prevailing party for purposes of awarding costs under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d) after Facebook succeeded in invalidating B.E. Technology, LLC’s asserted patent claims in inter partes review proceedings, which eliminated B.E.’s patent rights and required dismissal of B.E.’s district court infringement claims. ii RULE 29.6 DISCLOSURE STATEMENT Facebook, Inc. hereby discloses that Facebook has no parent corporation and that, to its knowledge, no publicly held corporation owns 10% or more of its stock as of the date of Facebook’s April 10, 2020 Proxy Statement. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page QUESTION PRESENTED .......................................... i RULE 29.6 DISCLOSURE STATEMENT ................ ii STATEMENT ............................................................. 1 REASONS FOR DENYING THE PETITION ........... 9 I. The Court Of Appeals Properly Followed And Correctly Applied This Court’s Precedents. ......... 9 A. The Court Of Appeals Followed This Court’s Precedents, Including CRST. ............. 9 B. The Court Of Appeals Correctly Concluded That Facebook Was The Prevailing Party. ............................................ 14 II. The Court Of Appeals’ Decision Does Not Conflict With Decisions From Other Courts. ..... 19 III.This Case Implicates No Issue Of Importance And Is A Poor Vehicle In Any Event. ................. 24 CONCLUSION ......................................................... 27 iv TABLE OF AUTHORITIES Page(s) Cases Alief Indep. Sch. Dist. v. C.C. ex rel. Kenneth & Nneka C., 655 F.3d 412 (5th Cir. 2011) ................................ 22 In re Arneson, 282 B.R. 883 (9th Cir. 2002) ................................ 18 B.E. Tech., L.L.C. v. Google, Inc., 2016 WL 6803057 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 17, 2016) .................................. 5, 18 Buckhannon Bd. & Care Home, Inc. v. W. Va. Dep’t of Health & Human Res., 532 U.S. 598 (2001) ................................................ 7 Cactus Canyon Quarries, Inc. v. Fed. Mine Safety & Health Rev. Comm’n, 820 F.3d 12 (D.C. Cir. 2016) ................................ 22 Cortés-Ramos v. Sony Corp. of Am., 889 F.3d 24 (1st Cir. 2018) ........................ 2, 21, 22 CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC, 136 S. Ct. 1642 (2016) .................................. passim Cuozzo Speed Techs., LLC v. Lee, 136 S. Ct. 2131 (2016) ............................................ 4 v TABLE OF AUTHORITIES (continued) Page(s) Dahlem v. Bd. of Educ. of Denv. Pub. Sch., 901 F.2d 1508 (10th Cir. 1990) ............................ 16 Diffenderfer v. Gomez-Colon, 587 F.3d 445 (1st Cir. 2009)................................. 16 Dragon Intellectual Prop., LLC v. Dish Network LLC, 956 F.3d 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2020) ............................ 13 Dunster Live, LLC v. LoneStar Logos Mgmt. Co., 908 F.3d 948 (5th Cir. 2018) ............................ 2, 20 E. Iowa Plastics, Inc. v. PI Inc., 832 F.3d 899 (8th Cir. 2016) ....................... 2,19, 20 Facebook, Inc. v. B.E. Tech., LLC, 2015 WL 1735098 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 2015) ........................................ 4 Fresenius USA, Inc. v. Baxter Int’l, Inc., 721 F.3d 1330 (Fed. Cir. 2013) ............ 6, 18, 23, 25 Google, Inc. v. B.E. Tech., LLC, 2015 WL 1735099 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 2015) ........................................ 5 Manildra Milling Corp. v. Ogilvie Mills, Inc., 76 F.3d 1178 (Fed. Cir. 1996) .............................. 14 vi TABLE OF AUTHORITIES (continued) Page(s) Microsoft Corp. v. B.E. Tech., LLC, 2015 WL 1735100 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 31, 2015) ........................................ 5 O.F. Mossberg & Sons, Inc. v. Timney Triggers, LLC, 955 F.3d 990 (Fed. Cir. 2020) ........................ 13, 22 RFR Indus., Inc. v. Century Steps, Inc., 477 F.3d 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2007) ............................ 22 Szabo Food Serv., Inc. v. Canteen Corp., 823 F.2d 1073 (7th Cir. 1987) .............................. 22 Thryv, Inc. v. Click-To-Call Techs., LP, 140 S. Ct. 1367 (2020) ............................................ 3 United States v. $32,820.56 in U.S. Currency, 838 F.3d 930 (8th Cir. 2016) ...................................................... 21 United States v. $70,670.00 in U.S. Currency, 929 F.3d 1293 (11th Cir. 2019) ............................ 21 United States v. Milner, 583 F.3d 1174 (9th Cir. 2009) .............................. 22 United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., 340 U.S. 36 (1950) ............................................ 6, 18 vii TABLE OF AUTHORITIES (continued) Page(s) Statutes 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) .................................................... 4 Other Authorities Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 11(c)................................................................... 6, 23 12(b)(6) .............................................................. 8, 25 41(a)(1)(i) .............................................................. 22 41(a)(2) .................................................................. 20 54(d) .......................................................... 1, 6, 9 ,26 H.R. Rep. No. 112-98, pt. 1 (2011) .............................. 4 Supreme Court Rule 10 ............................................. 11 STATEMENT Four years ago, this Court held that a defendant need not prevail “on the merits in order to be a ‘prevailing party.’” CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. EEOC, 136 S. Ct. 1642, 1651 (2016). Because the defendant “fulfill[s] its primary objective whenever the plaintiff’s challenge is rebuffed, irrespective of the precise reason for the court’s decision,” a defendant “may prevail even if the court’s final judgment rejects the plaintiff’s claim for a nonmerits reason”—for example, because the claim “is moot.” Id. at 1651-53. Petitioner B.E. Technology, LLC (“B.E.”) asks this Court to review the court of appeals’ straightforward and factbound application of that holding. Here, respondent Facebook, Inc. rebuffed patent infringement claims asserted by B.E. by invalidating B.E.’s patent rights. Because B.E. no longer had any patent rights to enforce—and could not pursue those claims then or in the future—the district court dismissed B.E.’s infringement claims as moot and found that Facebook was the prevailing party for purposes of awarding costs under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(d). Based on Facebook’s success in invalidating B.E.’s patents, the court of appeals affirmed the award of costs. Notwithstanding this Court’s decision in CRST, B.E. insists that the court of appeals erred. But whether the court of appeals correctly affirmed the district court’s award of costs does not merit this Court’s review for several reasons. First, there is no error. The court of appeals properly applied this Court’s precedents, including CRST, and correctly concluded that Facebook was the prevailing party. B.E. acknowledges that the court 2 cited and applied CRST, but contends that the court “misinterpreted” this Court’s opinion. Pet. 7. The court of appeals did no such thing—and B.E.’s factbound argument about the application of settled law to the particular circumstances here does not warrant this Court’s review. Nor did the court of appeals hold categorically that a defendant is the prevailing party whenever the plaintiff’s claims are dismissed as moot. Rather, the court concluded that when, as here, a plaintiff’s patent infringement claims are dismissed as moot after the defendant successfully invalidates them in related inter partes review proceedings, the defendant prevails. That approach follows from “[c]ommon sense”: in that circumstance, the defendant has fulfilled “its primary objective” in “rebuff[ing]” the infringement claims. CRST, 136 S. Ct. at 1651. Second, the court of appeals’ decision in this case neither creates nor implicates a circuit split. B.E. does not cite a single case from a different circuit applying CRST’s holding to a dismissal based on mootness, much less a case reaching a different result from the court of appeals’ decision here. Instead, B.E. cites one case holding that neither party prevailed where (unlike here) the litigation resulted in a “dead heat.” E. Iowa Plastics, Inc. v. PI Inc., 832 F.3d 899, 907 (8th Cir. 2016). And B.E. cites a series of cases where (unlike here) dismissal left the plaintiff free to pursue its claims in the future. See, e.g., Dunster Live, LLC v. LoneStar Logos Mgmt. Co., 908 F.3d 948 (5th Cir. 2018) (voluntary dismissal); Cortés-Ramos v. Sony Corp. of Am., 889 F.3d 24 (1st Cir. 2018) (dismissal in favor of arbitration). B.E. offers no reason to think that any other circuit would reach a different result where, as here, a defendant 3 permanently rebuffed a plaintiff’s claims resulting in a mootness dismissal. Third, B.E.’s efforts to describe this case as important are unpersuasive. And this case would be a poor vehicle for review in all events, as it would require the Court to wade through a series of factbound, splitless threshold issues before it could even reach the question
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