United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

WISCONSIN ALUMNI RESEARCH FOUNDATION, Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

APPLE INC., Defendant-Appellee ______________________

2022-1884, 2022-1886 ______________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin in Nos. 3:14-cv-00062-wmc, 3:15-cv-00621-wmc, Judge William M. Conley. ______________________

Decided: August 28, 2024 ______________________

MORGAN CHU, Irell & Manella LLP, Los Angeles, CA, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by ALAN J. HEINRICH, AMY E. PROCTOR.

WILLIAM F. LEE, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Boston, MA, argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented by ANDREW J. DANFORD, LAUREN B. FLETCHER; STEVEN JARED HORN, Washington, DC. ______________________

Before PROST, TARANTO, and CHEN, Circuit Judges. Case: 22-1884 Document: 54 Page: 2 Filed: 08/28/2024

2 WISCONSIN ALUMNI RESEARCH FOUNDATION v. APPLE INC.

PROST, Circuit Judge. Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (“WARF”) ap- peals two final judgments of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin in Case Nos. 14-cv-062 (“WARF I”) and 15-cv-621 (“WARF II”). Wis. Alumni Rsch. Found. v. Apple, Inc., No. 14-cv-062, No. 15-cv-621, 2022 WL 2080153 (W.D. Wis. May 10, 2022), J.A. 1‒13. With respect to WARF I, the district court denied WARF’s re- quest to pursue an abandoned doctrine-of-equivalents the- ory and entered judgment in favor of Apple Inc. (“Apple”) of noninfringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,781,752 (“the ’752 patent”). The district court also entered a final judgment in favor of Apple in WARF II, which accused similar, next- generation Apple products of infringing the same ’752 pa- tent, finding that action barred by WARF I. For the rea- sons below, we affirm the district court’s judgment in both WARF I and WARF II. BACKGROUND This case began more than ten years ago and involves a patent that has long since expired. The lengthy litigation history is scattered with strategic decisions that gave rise to the current appeal. We therefore begin with a mostly chronological retelling of the major events that have led to the matter before us. In short, before us are the appeals from two district court cases with the same parties, the same patent, and multiple generations of the accused product. WARF ac- cused Apple’s A7 and A8 processors of infringing the ’752 patent in WARF I. In WARF II, separately filed on the eve of trial in WARF I, WARF accused Apple’s A9 and A10 pro- cessors of infringing the ’752 patent. In WARF I, the jury found Apple’s A7 and A8 literally infringed the ’752 patent. Apple appealed, arguing no reasonable jury could find Ap- ple literally infringed under the plain and ordinary mean- ing of “particular” as used in the asserted claims. We agreed and reversed the prior judgment. On remand, Case: 22-1884 Document: 54 Page: 3 Filed: 08/28/2024

WISCONSIN ALUMNI RESEARCH FOUNDATION v. APPLE INC. 3

WARF attempted to reassert infringement against A7 and A8 under the doctrine of equivalents. The district court denied that request based on WARF’s prior affirmative abandonment of that theory. WARF II was stayed during the pendency of the previous appeal because the claim con- struction dispute was also relevant to the A9 and A10 pro- cessors accused in WARF II. Following the remand in WARF I, WARF attempted to continue WARF II against A9 and A10 under the doctrine of equivalents. But the district court found that WARF I precluded WARF from proceeding in WARF II. The context of these events is explained in more d