Celltrust Corp. v. Myrepchat, LLC, Fka Ionlake, LLC, Derrick Girard, Wade Girard

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
CELLTRUST CORP.,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
MYREPCHAT, LLC, FKA IONLAKE, LLC,
DERRICK GIRARD, WADE GIRARD,
Defendants-Appellees
______________________
2023-2057
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
District of Minnesota in No. 0:19-cv-02855-WMW-DJF,
Judge Wilhelmina M. Wright.
______________________
Decided: January 21, 2026
______________________
CHRISTOPHER D. BRIGHT , Snell & Wilmer, LLP, Costa
Mesa, CA, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented
by J ING HUA.
P ATRICK M. ARENZ, Robins Kaplan LLP, Minneapolis,
MN, argued for defendants-appellees. Also represented by
BRENDA L. J OLY , EMILY ELIZABETH N ILES .
______________________
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CELLTRUST CORP. v. MYREPCHAT, LLC 2
Before P ROST and CUNNINGHAM , Circuit Judges, and
ANDREWS , District Judge.1
CUNNINGHAM , Circuit Judge.
CellTrust Corporation (“CellTrust”) appeals the United
States District Court for the District of Minnesota’s judg-
ment and its (1) denial of its motion for judgment as a mat-
ter of law (“JMOL”) of infringement and validity of the
asserted claims of U.S. Patent No. 9,775,012 (“’012 patent”)
and U.S. Patent No. 10,778,837 (“’837 patent”); and (2) de-
nial of CellTrust’s motion for a new trial and to alter or
amend judgment. CellTrust Corp. v. ionLake, LLC, No. 19-
CV-2855 (WMW/DJF), 2023 WL 8448792, at *14 (D. Minn.
Dec. 6, 2023) (“Decision”); see also J.A. 6075–83. For the
reasons below, we affirm-in-part, vacate-in-part, and re-
mand.
Because the parties are familiar with the general back-
ground facts of this case, we focus only on the facts relevant
to our discussion here. CellTrust is the owner of the ’012
and ’837 patents, which claim systems and methods for
tracking electronic communications. See, e.g., ’012 patent
col. 35 ll. 54–65, col. 37 l. 37 to col. 38 l. 7; ’837 patent col. 42
l. 55 to col. 43 l. 2, col. 44 ll. 22–46. CellTrust asserts claims
1, 7, 20, and 23 of the ’012 patent and claims 1, 3, 20, and
22 of the ’837 patent. The asserted claims require sending
communications from a server or gateway to an electronic
discovery system or enterprise information archiving sys-
tem. See, e.g., ’012 patent col. 35 ll. 54–65, col. 37 l. 37 to
col. 38 l. 7; ’837 patent col. 42 l. 55 to col. 43 l. 2, col. 44
ll. 22–46.
1 Honorable Richard G. Andrews, District Judge,
United States District Court for the District of Delaware,
sitting by designation.
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CELLTRUST CORP . v. MYREPCHAT, LLC 3
CellTrust timely appealed, and we have jurisdiction
under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).
I. D ISCUSSION
On appeal,2 CellTrust argues that the district court
erred in: (1) issuing an erroneous post-trial claim con-
struction, Appellant’s Br. 16–56; (2) refusing to instruct
the jury on its proposed instruction on corroboration, id.
at 56–64; (3) denying JMOL for Defendants’ failure to com-
ply with the corroboration requirement, id. at 65–76;
(4) concluding that the jury could reach a finding of obvi-
ousness based on prior art combinations not presented to
the jury, id. at 76–79; and (5) entering judgment as to all
claims of the ’012 and ’837 patents, rather than just the
asserted claims, id. at 79.
A.
We first address whether the district court erred in
denying JMOL of infringement of the asserted claims of the
’012 and ’837 patents. CellTrust argues that the district
court erred in issuing an erroneous post-trial claim con-
struction that improperly imported the limitation “di-
rectly” into the asserted claims’ “sending” limitations.
Appellant’s Br. 16–56.
The grant or denial of a motion for JMOL is a proce-
dural issue that we review under the law of the applicable
regional circuit. ACCO Brands, Inc. v. ABA Locks Mfr. Co.,
2 While the appeal was pending, CellTrust moved to
take judicial notice of certain aspects of the intrinsic evi-
dence of the ’012 and ’837 patents. See ECF No. 45. At oral
argument, CellTrust conceded that its motion for judicial
notice is moot because it does not affect the outcome. Oral
Arg. 15:43–16:20, https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/oral-argu-
ments/23-2057_09052025.mp3. Accordingly, we deny as
moot CellTrust’s motion for judicial notice.
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CELLTRUST CORP. v. MYREPCHAT, LLC 4
501 F.3d 1307, 1311 (Fed. Cir. 2007). The Eighth Circuit
reviews “de novo the district court’s decision to deny judg-
ment as a matter of law.” Shaw Grp., Inc. v. Marcum,
516 F.3d 1061, 1064 (8th Cir. 2008). “A determination of
infringement is a question of fact that is reviewed for sub-
stantial evidence when tried to a jury.” ACCO Brands,
501 F.3d at 1311.
We need not address CellTrust’s claim construction ar-
gument because it failed to timely raise it. A party must
object to an error in a claim construction “before the jury
retires in order to preserve the claim of error on appeal.”
Ecolab Inc. v. Paraclipse, Inc., 285 F.3d 1362, 1369
(Fed. Cir. 2002). CellTrust did not ask the district court to
construe “sending” during claim construction. J.A. 5818–
52. CellTrust also did not object to the claim constructions
given to the jury. J.A. 7297 at 1370:6–8; J.A. 7666–68.
Thus, the jury was entitled to apply the jury instructions it
was given and “find, as a factual matter” whether the
claims were infringed as written. LifeNet Health
v. LifeCell Corp., 837 F.3d 1316, 1322–25 (Fed. Cir. 2016)
(holding that a failure to “request a new or modified claim
construction” doomed an appeal, despite a “Rule 50(a) mo-
tion for JMOL” that “present[ed] the issue as a factual
one.”).
Under the jury instructions as given, substantial evi-
dence supports the jury’s verdict. A reasonable jury could
have returned a verdict of noninfringement based on the
evidence presented at trial because “it was not unreasona-
ble for the jury to discredit the testimony of [CellTrust’s]
expert and find that the [asserted claims of the ’012 and
’837] patents were not infringed.” Star Sci., Inc. v. R.J.
Reynolds Tobacco Co., 655 F.3d 1364, 1378 (Fed. Cir.
2011); Niemiec v. Union Pac. R.R. Co., 449 F.3d 854, 859
(8th Cir. 2006) (“The jury was entitled to determine what
weight, if any, to give any of the expert testimony offered
by the parties.”). Specifically, CellTrust’s technical expert
testified that he did not look at the software or source code
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CELLTRUST CORP . v. MYREPCHAT, LLC 5
on any of the accused MyRepChat servers, J.A. 6645–46
at 718:13–719:5, 719:20–720:2; he would not have been
able to read code, J.A. 6634 at 707:1–3; and he did not
know how the communications are sent from the accused
MyRepChat server once it leaves the server. J.A. 6650
at 723:3–9. A reasonable jury could have concluded that
such testimony leaves open the question of whether the ac-
cused MyRepChat server directly infringes the “sending”
limitations of the asserted claims. Accordingly, we affirm
the district court’s denial of JMOL as to direct infringe-
ment of the asserted claims of the ’012 and ’837 patents.3
B.
We next address whether the district court erred
in: (1) refusing to instruct the jury on CellTrust’s proposed
instruction on corroboration, Appellant’s Br. 56–64; and
(2) denying JMOL that the asserted claims of the ’012 and
’837 patents are valid, id. at 65–79. CellTrust specifically
argues that, at a minimum, it “is entitled to a new trial
with a corroboration jury instruction.” Id. at 80.
We review a district court’s decision on a motion for a
new trial under the law of the regional circuit. Apple Inc.
v. Wi-LAN Inc., 25 F.4th 960, 975 (Fed. Cir. 2022). The
Eighth Circuit “review[s] the district court’s denial of a new
trial for abuse of discretion.” Nicholson v. Biomet, Inc.,
46 F.4th 757, 762 (8th Cir. 2022). In reviewing jury in-
structions, we also apply the law of the applicable regional
circuit, here the Eighth Circuit. Eli Lilly & Co. v. Aradigm
Corp., 376 F.3d 1352, 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2004). The Eighth
3 We also affirm the district court’s denial of JMOL
as to indirect infringement of the asserted claims of the
’012 and ’837 patents. See Dynacore Holdings Corp. v. U.S.
Philips Corp., 363 F.3d 1263, 1277 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (“[Ap-
pellant’s] failure to prove direct infringement . . . neces-
sarily dooms its allegations of indirect infringement”).
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CELLTRUST CORP. v. MYREPCHAT, LLC 6
Circuit “appl[ies] a deferential standard when reviewing a
district court’s jury instructions, reversing only for an
abuse of discretion.” Thomlison v. City of Omaha, 63 F.3d
786, 790–91 (8th Cir. 1995). “In considering the failure of
a district court to give a requested instruction, the omission
is error only if the requested instruction is correct, not ad-
equately covered by the charge given, and involves a point
so important that failure to give the instruction seriously
impaired the party’s ability to present an effective case.”
Id. (quoting Wood v. President & Trustees of Spring Hill
College, 978 F.2d 1214, 1222 (11th Cir. 1992)). Further-
more, “[i]n reviewing the jury verdict of obviousness, we re-
view whether the jury was correctly instructed on the law,
and whether there was substantial evidence whereby a
reasonable jury could have reached its verdict upon appli-
cation of the correct law to the facts, recognizing that inva-
lidity must be proved by clear and convincing evidence.”
U.S. Surgical Corp. v. Ethicon, Inc., 103 F.3d 1554, 1563
(Fed. Cir. 1997) (internal citations omitted).
We reject CellTrust’s argument that the district court
erred in denying JMOL for Defendants’ alleged failure to
comply with the corroboration requirement because even if
the district court erred in rejecting CellTrust’s proposed
corroboration instruction, any error was harmless and
CellTrust’s ability to present its case was not seriously im-
paired. See Ecolab, 285 F.3d at 1374 (“When [any] error in
a jury instruction ‘could not have changed the result, the
erroneous instruction is harmless.” (quoting Environ
Prods., Inc. v. Furon Co., 215 F.3d 1261, 1266–67 (Fed. Cir.
2000)). Defendants’ technical expert testified that Google’s
suite of products (Voice, Gmail, and Vault) and the Attana-
sio patent application rendered each asserted claim obvi-
ous. See, e.g., J.A. 7164–7171 at 1237:16–1244:10;
J.A. 7174–7222 at 1247:2–1295:2; J.A. 7224–25
at 1297:22–1298:9. CellTrust argues that Defendants’
technical expert “admittedly gave no corroboration for his
alleged personal use of a combination of three Google
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CELLTRUST CORP . v. MYREPCHAT, LLC 7
products.” Appellant’s Br. 65. However, as the district
court determined, Defendants’ technical expert’s testimony
was sufficiently corroborated through circumstantial evi-
dence, other witnesses, and trial exhibits. Decision at *4;
see TransWeb, LLC v. 3M Innovative Props. Co., 812 F.3d
1295, 1301 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“The corroborating evidence
can include documents and testimonial evidence. . . . Cir-
cumstantial evidence can be sufficient.”) (internal citations
omitted). For example, CellTrust’s technical expert con-
ceded that he reviewed various articles about the Google
prior art. See, e.g., J.A. 7409–10 at 1481:8–1482:21;
J.A. 7413–14 at 1485:21–1486:12. In addition, the Gard-
ner Magic Quadrant exhibit describes the Google system as
available since 2012, including Google Vault.
J.A. 8292–93. Thus, the failure to present a corroboration
instruction did not seriously impair CellTrust’s ability to
present its case, and we affirm the district court’s denial of
JMOL that the asserted claims of the ’012 and ’837 patents
are valid.
C.
CellTrust argues that the district court erred in enter-
ing judgment as to all claims of the ’012 and ’837 patents,
rather than just the asserted claims. Appellant’s Br. 79.
We agree. The district court made a blanket ruling that
each of the ’012 and ’837 patents in its entirety was invalid
or not infringed when the case was not focused on all the
claims of the asserted patents. See J.A. 14. Instead, the
verdict itself focused on the asserted claims. J.A. 6075–83.
Therefore, we remand for the district court to correct this
clerical error in the judgment, so that it aligns with the
verdict and is limited to the specific asserted claims of the
asserted patents. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 60(a) (“The court may
correct a clerical mistake or a mistake arising from over-
sight or omission whenever one is found in a judg-
ment . . . . on motion or on its own, with or without notice.
But after an appeal has been docketed in the appellate
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CELLTRUST CORP. v. MYREPCHAT, LLC 8
court and while it is pending, such a mistake may be cor-
rected only with the appellate court’s leave.”).
II. CONCLUSION
We have considered CellTrust’s remaining arguments
and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
affirm-in-part the judgment of no infringement and inva-
lidity as well as the decisions on JMOL and a new trial. We
vacate-in-part the judgment and remand for the limited
purpose of correcting the judgment to just address the as-
serted claims of the asserted patents.4
AFFIRMED-IN-PART, VACATED-IN-PART, AND
REMANDED
COSTS
Costs to Appellees.
4 Accordingly, we do not reach Appellees’ argument
that 35 U.S.C. § 101 provides an alternative ground for af-
firming the district court’s judgment of invalidity. See Ap-
pellees’ Br. 60–67.
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