Vl Collective Ip, LLC v. Netflix, Inc.

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
VL COLLECTIVE IP, LLC,
Appellant
v.
NETFLIX, INC.,
Appellee
______________________
2025-1132
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2023-
00630.
______________________
Decided: August 10, 2026
______________________
BRIAN C. BARAN, Reichman Jorgensen Lehman & Feld-
berg LLP, Washington, DC, argued for appellant. Also rep-
resented by SAVANNAH H. CARNES , N AVEED S. HASAN,
CHRISTINE E. L EHMAN; J AIME F. CARDENAS -N AVIA ,
MICHAEL MATULEWICZ-CROWLEY , N ATHANIEL G USTAV
WARNER , New York, NY.
ALIZA G EORGE C ARRANO, Willkie Farr & Gallagher
Case: 25-1132 Document: 53 Page: 1 Filed: 08/10/2026

-- 1 of 8 --

VL COLLECTIVE IP, LLC v. NETFLIX, INC. 2
LLP, Washington, DC, argued for appellee. Also repre-
sented by D ANE SOWERS ; D EVON WESLEY EDWARDS ,
MATTHEW S. F REIMUTH , New York, NY.
______________________
Before T ARANTO, SCHALL , and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
SCHALL , Circuit Judge.
VL Collective IP, LLC (“VideoLabs”) appeals the
October 2, 2024 final written decision of the Patent Trial
and Appeal Board (“Board”) determining that claims 1–24
of VideoLabs’ U.S. Patent No. 7,440,559 (“the ’559 patent”)
are unpatentable. Netflix, Inc. v. VL Collective IP LLC, No.
IPR2023-00630, 2024 WL 4374920 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 2, 2024),
J.A. 1–60. For the reasons set forth below, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
The ’559 patent is generally directed to “controlling the
flow of content” between a content provider (“server”) and
a user’s device (“terminal”). ’559 patent, col. 1 ll. 8–13,
col. 2 l. 57–col. 3 l. 51. More specifically, the ’559 patent
describes the use of a “content flow manager” that controls
the flow of multimedia content to a terminal based upon
status information from the terminal, and, in some embod-
iments, further based upon status information from the
server. See id. col. 11 ll. 6–17.
Claim 1 of the ’559 patent, which is representative of
the claims at issue, recites:
1. An apparatus comprising:
a processor configured to receive, from a terminal
located remote from the apparatus, a content sta-
tus including terminal status information, and con-
figured to receive server status information
regarding a source of content, wherein the server
status information comprises a listing of at least
one piece of content available from the source,
Case: 25-1132 Document: 53 Page: 2 Filed: 08/10/2026

-- 2 of 8 --

VL COLLECTIVE IP, LLC v. NETFLIX, INC. 3
wherein the processor is configured to send, to the
terminal, a response to the content status that in-
structs the terminal to perform one or more actions
to thereby control the flow of content to the terminal
based upon the terminal status information and the
server status information, and
wherein the at least one piece of content available
from the source, and the content for which the pro-
cessor is configured to control the flow, comprise
multimedia content.
Id. col. 15 ll. 15–31 (emphasis added).
Netflix, Inc. (“Netflix”) filed a petition for inter partes
review of claims 1–24 of the ’559 patent. J.A. 2. The peti-
tion challenged claims on three grounds: first, that claims
1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, 13, 14, 16, 19, 20, and 22 are anticipated by
U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2003/0023427
(“Cassin”); second, that claims 1–24 are obvious in view of
a combination of Cassin and U.S. Patent No. 7,243,136
(“Huston”); and third, that claims 1–24 are obvious in view
of Huston alone. J.A. 6.
In the final written decision, the Board did not ex-
pressly construe any claim terms. J.A 8 (noting that the
parties did not argue for the construction of any claim
terms). The Board ultimately determined that Netflix had
proven that each of the three grounds set forth in the peti-
tion rendered the claims unpatentable. J.A. 58. VideoLabs
appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C.
§ 1295(a)(4)(A).
D ISCUSSION
I
VideoLabs makes two arguments in its appeal, both of
which pertain to claim 1’s recitation of “wherein the pro-
cessor is configured to send, to the terminal, a response to
the content status that instructs the terminal to perform
Case: 25-1132 Document: 53 Page: 3 Filed: 08/10/2026

-- 3 of 8 --

VL COLLECTIVE IP, LLC v. NETFLIX, INC. 4
one or more actions to thereby control the flow of content
to the terminal based upon the terminal status information
and the server status information.”
First, VideoLabs argues that, although the Board did
not expressly construe the term, the Board implicitly con-
strued “instructs” as it appears in this limitation to mean
“trigger, prompt, or leave to the recipient’s discretion.” Ap-
pellant’s Br. 17, 23–33. In VideoLabs view, however, the
plain meaning of the term is “order, command, direct, [or]
tell.” Id. at 17. According to VideoLabs, the Board’s deter-
minations of unpatentability based upon Cassin (grounds
one and two) are in error because Cassin “[m]erely send[s]
content that a client may accept or reject” and therefore
Cassin does not teach “instruct[ing]” the flow of content un-
der VideoLabs’ construction of that term. Id. at 31–34.
Second, VideoLabs argues that the claimed “response
to the content status” sent by the processor must be “trig-
gered by” the terminal’s sending of “content status” infor-
mation. Appellant’s Br. 19, 34–42. The Board’s
determination that Huston renders the claims obvious
rests on error, VideoLabs asserts, because Huston’s re-
sponse is “triggered by” the availability of new content, not
content status solely provided by a terminal. Id. at 41–42. 1
1 Before the Board, the parties addressed this issue
in connection with claim 3 of the ’559 patent, which was
challenged in the petition’s second ground as obvious in
view of the combination of Cassin and Huston. J.A. 47–52.
In the final written decision, the Board incorporated its
claim 3 analysis, which analyzed Huston, into its discus-
sion of the petition’s third ground (challenging claims 1–24
as obvious in view of Huston alone). J.A. 47–50, 54–57. We
therefore address this argument in connection with repre-
sentative claim 1.
Case: 25-1132 Document: 53 Page: 4 Filed: 08/10/2026

-- 4 of 8 --

VL COLLECTIVE IP, LLC v. NETFLIX, INC. 5
We turn first to VideoLabs’ second argument.
II
“Claim construction is ultimately a question of law, de-
cided de novo on review, as are the intrinsic-evidence as-
pects of a claim-construction analysis.” Intel Corp.
v. Qualcomm Inc., 21 F.4th 801, 808 (Fed. Cir. 2021).
A
In the final written decision, the Board determined
that Huston teaches the claimed “response to the content
status” because a skilled artisan would understand that
Huston’s differencing engine: receives a listing of content
information (or “content status”) from a traffic server (or
“terminal”); uses that information to compare the versions
of content stored on an origin server and the traffic server;
and based on that comparison, directs the traffic server to
delete content. J.A. 50. As noted above, according to Vide-
oLabs, it is the availability of new content at Huston’s
origin servers that “triggers” a comparison and the actions
that follow, not the differencing engine’s receipt of content
information from the traffic servers. Appellant’s Br. 42.
In support of its argument that “response to the con-
tent status” must mean “triggered by” the content status
provided by a terminal, VideoLabs asserts that the claims
“consistently and repeatedly make clear” that the required
“response” is “a message sent as part of a call-and-response
protocol.” Id. at 38 (“The terminal sends content status in-
formation to the content flow manager, which prompts the
content flow manager to send ‘a response’ (answer, reply)
‘to the content status’ with instructions ‘based upon’ that
information (and sometimes additional information).”).
VideoLabs also asserts that “a response to the content sta-
tus” must have a different meaning than the phrase “based
upon the terminal status information” so as “to give mean-
ing to all the words in the claims.” Id. That is, VideoLabs
Case: 25-1132 Document: 53 Page: 5 Filed: 08/10/2026

-- 5 of 8 --

VL COLLECTIVE IP, LLC v. NETFLIX, INC. 6
contends that the “based upon” phrase “speaks to the con-
tent of the response,” whereas “response” “speaks to the
process.” Id. at 38–39.
VideoLabs next points to the ’559 patent specification,
which it asserts “teaches a protocol in which the terminal
provides a ‘content status’ that ‘includes terminal status
information,’ and then the content flow manager ‘send[s] a
response’ with instructions to control the flow of content.”
Id. at 39–40 (citing ’559 patent col. 11 l. 54–col. 14 l. 23,
Fig. 6). VideoLabs also relies upon dictionary definitions
for “response” and “respond” that it asserts support its con-
struction. Id. at 39.
B
To the extent that the Board implicitly construed “re-
sponse to the content status” not to require that it mean
“triggered by” the terminal’s sending of content status, we
find no error in such a construction. To begin, we do not
read the claims to require that the terminal’s sending of a
“content status” (or, for that matter, the processor’s receipt
of a content status) be the prompt or trigger that directly
causes the claimed “response.” For one thing, certain
claims, including claim 1, require that the processor receive
“server status information” in addition to “content status
including terminal status information” and require that
the processor send the “response” to the terminal “based
upon” both the “terminal status information” and the
“server status information.” ’559 patent, col. 15 ll. 16–27
(claim 1); see also id. col. 1. ll. 47–53 (claim 4), col. 16 ll. 30–
35 (claim 10), col. 17 ll. 11–16 (claim 16), col. 18 ll. 16–22
(claim 22). This cuts against an understanding of “re-
sponse to the content status” that requires that the “con-
tent status” is necessarily the “trigger” that leads to the
sending of a “response” by the processor.
We also do not read the recitation of the “based upon”
phrase in the claims to require that the “response” be “trig-
gered” by the content status provided by the terminal in
Case: 25-1132 Document: 53 Page: 6 Filed: 08/10/2026

-- 6 of 8 --

VL COLLECTIVE IP, LLC v. NETFLIX, INC. 7
order for “response” not to be rendered meaningless. Even
if, as VideoLabs argues, “based upon” speaks to the content
of the communication, and “response” refers to the process,
nothing in the claims necessitates that “response” means
more than merely a communication sent after the terminal
sends content status.
The specification of the ’559 patent likewise does not
support limiting “response” to mean “triggered by” the con-
tent status provided by the terminal. The specification
makes clear that the content flow manager can receive con-
tent status from a terminal “periodically” and can make a
determination and respond to the terminal “[a]fter the con-
tent flow manager 53 has been provided with the terminal
status information and the server status information.”
’559 patent col. 12 ll. 4–17, 60–64; see also id. col. 13 ll. 37–
46 (noting that a “response” can be sent after determining
“if [the server] includes one or more pieces of content for
the terminal to download”). That the response occurs “af-
ter” the content status provided by the terminal is received
does not mean that the content status necessarily “trig-
gers” the response. This understanding is consistent with
the dictionary definitions VideoLab provides, which do not
themselves require that a “response” be “prompt[ed]” or
“triggered by” another action. See Appellant’s Br. 39 (citing
Response, Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary,
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/response,
Respond, Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/respond).
VideoLabs’ argument that Huston does not render
claims 1–24 obvious depends on its unsuccessful claim con-
struction argument. We therefore affirm the Board’s de-
termination that a preponderance of the evidence
establishes that claims 1–24 of the ’559 patent are un-
patentable in view of Huston.
Case: 25-1132 Document: 53 Page: 7 Filed: 08/10/2026

-- 7 of 8 --

VL COLLECTIVE IP, LLC v. NETFLIX, INC. 8
C
Having affirmed the Board’s determination that Hus-
ton renders claims 1–24 of the ’559 patent unpatentable,
we need not reach VideoLabs’ first argument on appeal:
that the Board implicitly construed “instructs” in connec-
tion with its determinations that Cassin renders the claims
unpatentable. Oral arg. at 8:52–9:32,
https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/oral-arguments/25-1132_05
052026.mp3 (counsel for VideoLabs acknowledging that if
our court were to affirm the Board’s unpatentability deter-
mination with respect to Huston we need not address the
Board’s unpatentability determinations with respect to
Cassin).
CONCLUSION
We have considered VideoLabs’ remaining arguments
but find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
affirm the Board’s decision.
AFFIRMED
Case: 25-1132 Document: 53 Page: 8 Filed: 08/10/2026

-- 8 of 8 --