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US Supreme Court: 04-607 | Patent Claim | Glossary Of Patent Law Terms
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES - - - - - - - - - - - - - -X LABORATORY CORPORATION OF AMERICA HOLDINGS, DBA LABCORP, Petitioner V. METABOLITE LABORATORIES INC., ET AL. : : : : : No. 04-607 : :
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -X Washington, D.C. Tuesday, March 21, 2006 The above-entitled matter came on for oral argument before the Supreme Court of the United States at 11:12 a.m. APPEARANCES: JONATHAN S. FRANKLIN, ESQ., Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Petitioner. THOMAS G. HUNGAR, ESQ., Deputy Solicitor General, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., as amicus curiae, supporting the Petitioner. MIGUEL A. ESTRADA, ESQ., Washington, D.C., on behalf of the Respondents.
JONATHAN S. FRANKLIN, ESQ. On behalf of the Petitioner THOMAS G. HUNGAR, ESQ. On behalf of the United States Department of Justice, as amicus curiae, supporting the Petitioner MIGUEL A. ESTRADA, ESQ. On behalf of the Respondents REBUTTAL ARGUMENT OF JONATHAN S. FRANKLIN, ESQ. On behalf of the Petitioner 48 29 20 3
P R O C E E D I N G S (11:12 a.m.) JUSTICE STEVENS: We'll hear argument in number
04-607, Laboratory Corporation of America against Metabolite Laboratories. Mr. Franklin, whenever you're ready, you may
ORAL ARGUMENT OF JONATHAN S. FRANKLIN ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER MR. FRANKLIN: please the Court: The patent claim at issue in this case was held to be infringed whenever any doctor looks at a homocysteine test result and reflexively thinks about a basic natural correlation. The result has been multimillion Justice Stevens, and may it
dollar damages and an injunction prohibiting a testing company from conducting important homocysteine tests by any method and for any reason whatsoever. As broadly construed by the Federal Circuit, this claim is invalid as a matter of law for two closely related reasons. It contravenes both of this Court's
settled proscription against effectively patenting laws of nature or natural phenomena as well as the requirement that a patent must fully and clearly describe, disclose and enable an actual invention and must not sweep so far as to
encompass more than what was actually invented. JUSTICE KENNEDY: that second point definiteness? MR. FRANKLIN: The second point is Is that second point -- is
definiteness, it's enablement. JUSTICE KENNEDY: Does definiteness describe
this second aspect that you've just -MR. FRANKLIN: Honor. JUSTICE KENNEDY: MR. FRANKLIN: Just part of it. It describes part of it, Your
There is definiteness, there is We think all of
enablement, there is written description. those are contravened here. JUSTICE SCALIA:
it definitely goes so far as to allow no other use of this natural law that it's discovered? It definitely goes that
far, isn't definiteness fully satisfied? MR. FRANKLIN: because -JUSTICE SCALIA: No? I think not, Your Honor,
MR. FRANKLIN: -- definiteness would still require that you distinctly claim an invention here and that's one of the things that's absent in this case. even moving beyond that, Your Honor -JUSTICE KENNEDY: It's indefinite because we But
don't know where our thoughts will take us?
Suppose there a
patent which requires looking at the clouds in the sky for 10 minutes. definite. MR. FRANKLIN: Well, Your Honor, if it is I mean, that's maybe absurd, but it's certainly
definite, then it is certainly not enabling of an actual invention. And here the Morse case, which we have cited in In that case, the court held
our briefs, comes into play.
that Samuel Morse was entitled to patent his innovative telegraph but he couldn't go further to effectively patent the law of nature or natural phenomenon associated with it and thereby monopolize all manner of devices and processes that he did not invent and did not enable or describe. JUSTICE GINSBURG: what is patentable? But wasn't the issue there
I mean this case in the district court 101 deals with
was under this definiteness idea, 112. what's patentable.
And it seems to me that you -- this case
was presented as a definiteness case. MR. FRANKLIN: definiteness, Your Honor. But it was not just It was section 112. But let me
get to the Morse case because as we have explained in our reply brief and, in fact, in our opening brief, the Morse case was in fact decided under what is now section 112. The
Court cited and quoted the relevant statute which has not changed in any material respect today. The Court made clear
that the problem in that case, at page 120 of the opinion, was that Morse claims what he has not described in the manner required by law. And what we have here is the same situation. We have these patentees who are indisputably entitled to patent their innovative method for measuring homocysteine. And LabCorp continues to use that method sometimes and we pay royalties whenever we use that method. But what they
couldn't do is what Samuel Morse tried to do and push the envelope, and try to effectively patent the natural phenomenon associated with all homocysteine tests and thereby gain a monopoly over just not the one that they invented, not just those that are in the prior art, which itself would be impermissible, but even yet to be invented assays. And here is the nub of this case. LabCorp has
sought to use but has been penalized for using and is prevented from using a more efficient and cost-effective method for assaying homocysteine than the one that these patentees invented. The method that LabCorp seeks to use,
which is the Abbott method, reduces the processing time for homocysteine tests down from what was up to 18 hours under the patentee's method down to a manner of minutes. JUSTICE GINSBURG: Is the Abbott test -- that's
patented and you're paying royalties for that?
immunoassay. Honor.
Actually, I don't know, Your
And, I just don't know whether it's patented but it
is certainly not covered by their claims 1 through 12, which have never been -- well, the district court found that those claims didn't apply here, and that's not an issue. The Abbott method is different. It's an
It is not the same kind of mass spectometry It's
gas chromatograph method that they have described.
much more efficient, it's much more cost-effective and the reason obviously that LabCorp wants to use that method is to more effectively serve patients and their doctors and to meet the burgeoning demand for homocysteine tests. But
because these patentees have effectively claimed the patent on the natural correlation that's associated with all homocysteine tests, they have prevented LabCorp from using what the patent laws would seek to encourage, that is, a more cost-effective, innovative, different method, the kind of thing -- exactly the kind of thing that the Court was concerned about in Morse. JUSTICE KENNEDY: The opinion of the Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit in the appendix begins discussion of claim 13 about page 16a. Are there some, one
or two sentences there or a paragraph that you can tell me is completely wrong? MR. FRANKLIN: In the Federal Circuit's --
You're asking us to
reverse this court of appeals decision and I'm looking, and particularly with reference to claim 13, the one we're talking about, I assume, and I'm looking through pages, say, 16 and 21 to find something that's absolutely wrong. MR. FRANKLIN: Well, I think what -You want me to tell the court But where is it wrong?
of appeals, well, you can't do this. MR. FRANKLIN:
I think where it's wrong, Your
Honor, is that it proceeds from an assumption that is wrong in itself and that is -JUSTICE KENNEDY: So you can't point me to any
particular sentence that -- that's absolutely wrong? MR. FRANKLIN: I think that the argument in --
the Federal Circuit's decision is wrong in its enablement discussion, it's wrong in its written description discussion. I mean, just to take one, the written
description posits that this is a valid written description because the inventors, as the Federal Circuit says in its opinion, possessed the correlating step. And I think what's
wrong about that, Your Honor, is that nobody can possess the correlation. And that's the nub of this case. JUSTICE KENNEDY: MR. FRANKLIN: And where does it say this?
I'm sorry, that is at page -- I Let me just make sure
believe it's at 17 of the appendix.
I've got the right -- and that was when it talks about -JUSTICE KENNEDY: You see my point? I'm not
sure what it is you want me to say went wrong, other than the fact that this patent is, should never have been granted to begin with but that wasn't raised. MR. FRANKLIN: Your Honor. Well, I think it was raised,
The validity issue was raised in the district The district court had
court, it was raised on appeal.
construed the patent as requiring -- and part of the district court's claim construction addressed the issue as to whether or not one could patent a law of nature or effectively patent a scientific idea. The district court
said this patent must require something more, and that is at joint appendix page 60. It must require something more than
simple existence of the relationship between homocysteine and vitamin deficiencies. And one of the places that the
Federal Circuit did get it wrong, Your Honor, was in abandoning that limitation that the district court had imposed on the patent. JUSTICE BREYER: JUSTICE SOUTER: I guess that -But you're arguing now, as I
understand it, that the reason you win on definiteness is that it sweeps in even as yet uninvented processes. MR. FRANKLIN: Yes.
specifically? that.
And it does so by means, in
effect, of erecting this umbrella of a natural fact which is intended to cover every process that might be relevant to establishing that natural fact. MR. FRANKLIN: Yes. So that you're saying we
cannot -- no court can decide definiteness in this situation without hitting the patentable issue. MR. FRANKLIN: exactly what we're arguing. Circuit got it wrong. Absolutely, Your Honor. That's
And that's where the Federal
And we did in fact urge the Court -But you told the -- you said,
judge, if you in fact hold that this claim 13 satisfies section 112 and is sufficiently precise and specific and concise, if you hold that, then the claim would violate Morse? MR. FRANKLIN: Yes, it would violate -And you argued that
And so your problem -- I guess that you said
I mean, you quote it in your supplementary brief on
page 6. MR. FRANKLIN: We did say that. Yes.
JUSTICE BREYER: MR. FRANKLIN:
And it's the language.
Yes. That's what it said. It
didn't say Morse.
It said Diehr. Diehr, which -Dier incorporates Morse.
Yes. As was my understanding.
Yes. So your complaint about the
paragraph on 17a is that it did not deal with that argument. MR. FRANKLIN: Yes. But I imagine they'll say that
simply mentioning it in an oral argument is not enough to get us to think seriously about it. MR. FRANKLIN: Well, it was in the brief, Your
Honor, and I think that it was also in, with the premise of everything that we argued, because the district court had already -- and again, I point the Court to joint appendix page 60. The district court had already held that it had to
mean -- the patent had to mean something more than the simple relationship, the simple existence of the relationship between elevated homocysteine and vitamin deficiencies. And the premise of the entire Federal Circuit
argument and, in fact, to the arguments below was that we don't know what that anything is, because the patent doesn't tell you.
The Federal Circuit blew past that, Your Honor, and what the Federal Circuit said, which makes the issue front and center now, is the Federal Circuit said, and this is at 18a. "The correlating step is a simple conclusion
that a cobalamin/folate deficiency exists vel non based on the assaying step." And what that means is now, as a result of the Federal Circuit's decision, unlike the district court's decision, we now know that every homocysteine test automatically infringes because every doctor will reflexively look at it and think about the phenomenon associated with it. JUSTICE GINSBURG: You set off the district
court and the court of appeals but you don't think the district court got it right, either. court required something more. MR. FRANKLIN: Yes. What was the something more You said the district
JUSTICE GINSBURG: and why wasn't that adequate? MR. FRANKLIN: wasn't adequate.
We don't know and that's why it
That's why we had always argued under
indefiniteness and under enablement, under written description. We had no idea. The patent doesn't tell you.
We suggested one way. didn't agree with us.
That wasn't -- the Federal Circuit The problem with the district
court's -- we agreed with the district court's claim construction. That far, we did. But then there was nothing
more even adduced at trial, and this was the argument we consistently made. The Federal Circuit then abandoned what
the district court did and then we here have it front and center with the patent -JUSTICE GINSBURG: What the district court did
is it got, it tried this case and it got a rather large jury verdict. MR. FRANKLIN: Yes. And I don't understand how
you're setting off the district court from the court of appeals when the court of appeals, whatever it said, it affirmed the judgment of the district court. MR. FRANKLIN: It did, but the claim At page
construction is the part of what I'm talking about. 60, I'll just read what the district court said.
"Correlating is a verb and must mean more than the simple existence of a relationship between a high level homocysteine and deficiency in cobalamin or folate." The Federal Circuit's opinion is contrary to that, Your Honor, and that's where this whole issue gets put front and center now. And what we have here under the
Federal Circuit's extraordinarily broad construction is we have nothing more than the reflexive mental recognition of a
natural correlation preceded by the inherent and generic step of somehow ascertaining the input for that correlation. JUSTICE SCALIA: I could see how that broad
interpretation would raise perhaps for the -- clearly raise for the first time the section 101 issue. But, so that
should have been clear to you by the time the court of appeals decision came out, right? petition here, rely on 101? MR. FRANKLIN: Well, we relied, Your Honor, on But did you, in your
all of -- many, many cases in court interpreting that provision and others under the law of nature doctrine -JUSTICE SCALIA: though, did you? MR. FRANKLIN: example, Your Honor. We didn't but just as an You never mentioned 101,
The court's invitation or, to the
solicitor general didn't mention 101, but everybody knew what the court was talking about. And let me just -- the
petition couldn't have raised -- the petition squarely raised the issue. On page 18, we cited Diamond versus
Diehr, Benson, Funk Brothers, Mackay Radio and the Le Roy case from 1852. On page 26, we cited, quoted, relied on Page 27 refers back Page 28
Funk Brothers and Mackay Radio again.
to the authorities at page 18 of the petition.
states that under the Federal Circuit's holding, anyone who claims to be the first to discover scientific correlation
could patent it simply by drafting the vague test plus correlate claim. This issue was presented in the petition. is within the question presented. It
And, Your Honor, I think
that the issue is easy to resolve given the Federal Circuit's broad construction. Under that construction,
again, there is nothing more than the recognition of the natural phenomenon preceded by what is the inherent step in any natural correlation of ascertaining the input. And as
we have said without contradiction in the opening brief, if this patent is valid, then anyone can gain a patent over a scientific correlation by doing this kind of artful drafting. Einstein could have patented E=MC2 which this
Court has stated on more than one occasion could not be patented simply by doing a test plus correlate. To take another hypothetical that was stated in the opening brief without contradiction, if I discover tomorrow a new correlation between having a certain kind of blood type and a medical condition that heretofore people do not know about, I could run down to the Patent Office, patent that correlation and the effect of that would be to monopolize all blood typing, no matter whether it's done through methods in the prior art or methods yet to be developed. JUSTICE ALITO: Is it true as the Respondents
argue that a holding in your favor would call into question thousands of patents? MR. FRANKLIN: Well, they don't mention all --
the number but I don't think it would call into question a huge swath of patents. It would call into question patents
that are like this one, obviously, things that are simply test plus correlate. JUSTICE ALITO: many there are of those? MR. FRANKLIN: exhaustive search. No. You would have to do an And do you have any idea how
There are some and I believe that some
of the ones that the Respondents cite, some of the claims -and let's distinguish between patents and claims here, because it might invalidate some claims in some patents, which is not unusual because patent drafters often push the envelope. They patent this -- in this case, they have
indisputably unchallenged and valid patent claims for a method of measuring homocysteine, but they went further in claim 13. And to the extent there are other patents that But to the extent
might have those kind of claims, yes.
we're talking about the broader swath of patents dealing with things like genes, no. JUSTICE KENNEDY: Well, if that's -- if there is
some likelihood or possibility of this that we should assess, it seems to me that it's imprudent for us to discuss it here
when it hasn't been discussed in the court of appeals. MR. FRANKLIN: I think, well, it was, again, it But again, what we're
was pressed in the court of appeals.
talking about is deciding this case on its facts and obviously to the extent there are other patents that are just like this one, and the court has addressed this in the context of Flook and Diehr and has distinguished between those patents which facially looked rather similar but the court was able to draw the distinctions. Circuit can draw the distinctions. But if it is a patent that is simply like this one, which claims nothing more than a natural correlation preceded by the inherent step of ascertaining the input, no court, to my knowledge, has ever upheld such a patent before this case. JUSTICE KENNEDY: You're urging on us something The Federal
like plain error, is about what you're telling us. MR. FRANKLIN: No, I think that we're urging
the Court to examine the case that it has before it, look at the patent and we're not asking the Court to go further than this patent. Look at this patent, look at the Federal
Circuit's construction and that's something that we will take as a given for purposes of today's proceeding. JUSTICE STEVENS: You're saying this patent, you
really mean just claim 13, don't you?
I'm -- excuse me, Justice.
again, I wanted, as I was saying to Justice Alito, you do need to distinguish between patents and claims. 13 is the only claim that's been asserted here. only claim that's being challenged. JUSTICE SCALIA: And claim It's the
And let me just --
Why shouldn't we do what the
Solicitor General proposed, that is, since we don't know for sure, at least I don't know for sure, I'm not enough of a scientist -MR. FRANKLIN: JUSTICE SCALIA: Right. -- whether in fact the section
112 determination, as made by the Federal court, excludes all other possible use of this natural phenomenon. Since I don't know that for sure, why shouldn't I tell the Federal Circuit, you know, your definition of correlate raises this issue and you should resolve whether it is true that there is no other possible usefulness for this, no substantial usefulness? MR. FRANKLIN: Quite simply, Your Honor, it's
because the Court doesn't need to reach that issue and didn't need to reach it in any of its prior cases save one and that's the Benson case where that issue came up really in one sentence of the opinion. In the Morse case, in the
Funk Brothers case, in the Flook case, all of those patents had -- were limited to a particular use.
Just take Morse's patent which was limited to just conveying information at a distance through electromagnetism. That was actually one very small sliver In fact, very,
of what you can do with electromagnetism. very small.
And the Court said, no, it doesn't matter.
Where what you have is effectively the patent on the correlation, it doesn't matter whether you've limited it to one use or many uses. So if the Court -Okay. -- so I don't think the Court
JUSTICE SCALIA: MR. FRANKLIN: needs to get into that.
In Diehr, the Court made that
explicit that a field of use -- limiting a patent to a field of use is not going to save that patent from invalidity. Now, if the Court does examine the issue, it ought to do it the way it did it in Benson just by looking at the broad sweep here. And how I would use it, Your
Honor, would be to say that in addition to all of the other problems that this patent, as construed by the Federal Circuit, has, it also has an extraordinarily broad pre-emptive sweep. It applies to any homocysteine test, no
matter how it's done, no matter what reason it's done, no matter if it's in the prior art, no matter if I invent it tomorrow. It applies to any act of even looking at the
And here it's not just doctors.
audience today learns about this correlation because of this argument, if they're listening carefully, and then they go to their doctor and ask for a test, they will, number one, be inducing infringement; number two, if they look at the test result, now being armed with what we have given them, which is the scientific knowledge that the correlation exists, they will infringe. trial to that effect. So I don't think the Court needs to get into the inquiry, and I don't think the Patent Office really wants to get into that inquiry either. To have to look at And there was testimony in
each patent application to determine not just based on what's in it whether it's valid but whether there are other uses not even invented yet that might not be covered. That's not, I submit, what the Patent Office would like to do. If I might reserve the remainder of my time. JUSTICE STEVENS: You may, Mr. Franklin.
I think Mr. Hungar is next, Mr. Estrada. MR. ESTRADA: Oh, sorry, Justice Stevens. You're too hungry,
JUSTICE SCALIA: Mr. Estrada. JUSTICE STEVENS:
ON BEHALF OF THE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE AS AMICUS CURIAE MR. HUNGAR: may it please the Court: Claim 13 satisfies the written description, enablement and definiteness requirements of section 112 of the patent act. The patent specification sets forth the Thank you, Justice Stevens, and
scope and nature of the claimed invention in terms readily understandable by a person of ordinary skill in the art and it enables such persons to practice the claimed invention. JUSTICE KENNEDY: So you agree or you submit
that you can have a definite description of something that's unpatentable because it's too broad? MR. HUNGAR: conclusion, Your Honor. Well, that obviously assumes the But with respect to the
definiteness requirement, the challenge seems to be that because the first step of claim 13 is not limited to a particular type of assay but instead claims all assays, that that somehow renders it indefinite, and that argument is simply incorrect as this Court has recognized for over a hundred years. In the Cochrane against Deener case, for example, the Court addressed that question where a process claim was not limited to a particular method of performing a particular step of the process, and the Court said quote, "A
process may be patentable irrespective of the particular form of the instrumentalities used", closed quote. Court reiterated that principle in the Diehr case. JUSTICE KENNEDY: But, but, but -- well, let's And the
assume that there is a claim that includes something that should not be patentable, because it's too broad or it involves the scientific phenomena, the mechanics of the universe. Can a patent still be definite if it includes
that sort of unpatentable claim? MR. HUNGAR: It can be. It might or might not
be depending on the circumstances.
The Morse case is an
example where it was both indefinite and invalid because trying to claim a principle of nature, in effect. But by
the same token you can easily have, and in fact you have here, a claim where it's definite in that persons of ordinary skill in the art understand the scope of the claims. They know what is and is not within the scope of
the patent, which is, in this case, a question entirely separate from the question whether, as construed by the Court and as understood by the person of ordinary skill in the art, it's valid, under section 101, that is, under the scope of patentable subject matter. JUSTICE STEVENS: validity under 101? MR. HUNGAR: Your Honor, as we suggested in our What do you think about its
brief, we don't think that that question is properly before the Court but that -JUSTICE STEVENS: I understand, but I didn't ask
you what you said in your brief. MR. HUNGAR: Yes, Your Honor. But that if the
Court were to reach that question, we think that while it's unclear because the issue wasn't litigated, there appears to be prima facie evidence of invalidity under Benson, this Court's decision in Benson, because, given what we currently know, it appears that the claim as construed by the court of appeals preempts all substantial practical applications of the correlation. But because that issue wasn't litigated
below, if the Court were to reach it, it should remand -JUSTICE STEVENS: To you read the the patent as --
talking about step 1, you can use any assay method you want. It doesn't have to be patented. But the correlation, step 2,
that any time you ask a doctor to tell us what you think the results of the test mean, that that's an infringement? MR. HUNGAR: That's how the court of appeals Is that --
construed it, yes, Your Honor. I'm sorry. JUSTICE STEVENS:
And is it possible that that
can be patentable, in your view? MR. HUNGAR: Well, again, Your Honor, we -If you just go to the doctor
and ask for advice and he says, yes, I've looked at the
results; you've got a vitamin B deficiency or whatever it is -MR. HUNGAR: As we indicated --- he's committed
infringement under this patent as I understand it. MR. HUNGAR: As we indicated in our brief, we
think that raises a potentially serious pre-emption problem and it also raises the anticipation problem, that is, the section 102 argument which is not before the Court but if it were litigated -JUSTICE STEVENS: It would raise the -- just That's what I'm
do you think that that patent is valid? trying to ask you. MR. HUNGAR:
Well, we think it has validity
problems under section 102 and also under the pre-emption, -- potentially under the pre-emption doctrine. We haven't
addressed the other issues that Petitioner seeks to put before the Court involving Diehr and Flook, both because -well, actually for four reasons. First of all, it wasn't pressed or passed upon below, it wasn't -- it's not fairly included within the question presented, which construed at its most broad, broadly, includes only the monopolization issue -JUSTICE STEVENS: I know all that. I'm just
really interested in your view of the patent.
I'm trying to get to. MR. HUNGAR: Yes, Your Honor. And as I've
said, we've identified two areas in which we think there are potentially problems if they were in front of the Court. JUSTICE STEVENS: problem too? MR. HUNGAR: problem, Your Honor. The preemption issue is a 101 Do you think there is a 101
We haven't addressed -- as I said, we
have not taken a position on the broader section 101 issues and we would urge the Court not to do so as well, in a case in which it wasn't presented below, the Court doesn't have the benefit of the lower court's assessment of that question. And given that that question implicates
substantial reliance interests and -JUSTICE STEVENS: So we do have a fairly long In
discussion by the lower court on the infringement issue. order to find infringement, they had to construe correlation. MR. HUNGAR: Yes, Your Honor. Yes.
JUSTICE STEVENS: MR. HUNGAR:
But the Court didn't grant
certiorari on that question. Yes. JUSTICE BREYER: definiteness doctrine. guess weren't so clear. I didn't understand the
I mean, all these things in 1854 I But I think the precise claim in
Samuel Morse's case was the use of the motive power of the electric current for making or printing intelligible characters. That sounds absolutely definite. Anyone can
understand it. I thought the problem there was that although anyone can understand it, you can't claim something as broad as that. You must intend to claim something narrower. And
insofar as it's narrower, it isn't precise. it's broad, it's too broad, but definite.
So insofar as And insofar as Okay?
it's narrow, it's not there, but indefinite.
Precisely the claim that they raised before the Federal Circuit and precisely the claim -- with appropriate citations, and precisely the claim in respect to which the Federal Circuit said nothing. MR. HUNGAR: Your Honor, I may have misspoken
before but I think it's probably most accurate to read the Morse case as dealing with a written specification problem, that is, the specification in claim 8, the one Your Honor is referring to, didn't tell anything about the method by which the principle of nature, electromagnetism, would be used. All it did is describe a result, and it purported to claim any, any method involving any number of steps that any inventor might ever invent in the future, even if those steps had nothing to do with -- if there was not a single overlapping step between that new process and Morse's
process. JUSTICE BREYER: Yes. And we here apply the
correlation to any homocysteine test, any one here, any one in the future, any one that any mind might impend. difference? MR. HUNGAR: Well, the difference is between What's the
claiming a -- claiming all methods of achieving a particular result and claiming one process for achieving that particular result and then as one claiming any means of doing one particular step of that process. JUSTICE BREYER: I apply electricity to all I apply
methods of putting down letters with electricity.
the correlation to all methods of creating a homocysteine test. MR. HUNGAR: Well, again, Your Honor, if it is
true that all methods of employing the assay -- excuse me, all methods of employing the correlation are preempted by this patent claim, then it would be invalid under section 101. But to the extent the argument is an attempt to go
beyond that issue, we submit Morse doesn't support it and indeed this Court's decision's in -JUSTICE BREYER: going beyond it. Oh, no, I'm not talking about
I just thought that line between
definiteness and 101, 112, 101 is not quite so clear as I would have thought, because it sounds to me relying on the
1854 case of Samuel F. B. Morse, they're making the same kind of argument and, indeed, you translated Morse as a definiteness 112 argument, and yet it seemed to me that's the kind of argument they're making. MR. HUNGAR: Yes, Your Honor. And I think it
is more properly understood as a specification problem because, as you say, anyone can understand the scope of that claim. It's just that it was not sufficiently described
because he was purporting to claim any process even if it had nothing to do with the process he had invented, and that's not what's happening here. They claim a particular
step, that is, do an assay, as opposed to some other method, and they claim any method of doing that assay within step 1 of the overall claim but they aren't saying -- for instance the analogy would be if they had claimed we've just devised one particular method of determining whether someone has a vitamin deficiency and we therefore claim all other methods of determining whether someone has a vitamin deficiency. JUSTICE SOUTER: is the problem for us. Okay, I think you've hit what
When you use the word assay, you And that's
assume that that is excluding certain processes. not clear to me.
Would you explain that in greater detail? Well, again, we don't know -I thought an assay was in
effect synonymous with any process that gets the relevant data and you're using it in a more -- I think, in answering Justice Breyer's question, you were using it in a narrower sense. MR. HUNGAR: Well, I think that, as understood
by a person having ordinary skill in the art, we -- it may be. We don't know because the issue wasn't litigated. JUSTICE SOUTER: But I thought that was the
point of your argument, that there are assays and then there are other methods. Did I misunderstand you? Well, no. Certainly it's
conceivable that there are other methods and indeed the patent claim -- the patent specification refers to -- or suggests the possibility of assaying tissue as opposed to fluid. The claim is limited to fluid. I thank the Court. JUSTICE STEVENS: Thank you, Mr. Hungar.
Mr. Estrada, it's your turn now. ORAL ARGUMENT OF MIGUEL A. ESTRADA ON BEHALF OF THE ON RESPONDENTS MR. ESTRADA: Thank you, Justice Stevens.
Thank you, Justice Stevens, and may it please the Court: This was a hard fought jury trial in which the jury rejected everything LabCorp had to sell. should be affirmed for three reasons. That judgment
The first is LabCorp never asked the trial judge or the Federal Circuit to declare this patent invalid under section 101, which is an affirmative defense they had to plead in the answer and prove by clear and convincing evidence. Second, they're simply wrong on the merits of the 101 case under this Court's cases. And third, you can search their brief in vain for a workable test for patentable subject matter that would invalidate this patent and not bring complete havoc to the patent world by calling into question numerous diagnostic tests in medicine and otherwise, pharmaceuticals and other inventions. Let me deal briefly with the waiver question because we don't get a sur-reply brief and there is a lot in the reply brief that I wish I could deal with at length. But I think I will say that it is a collection of cropped quotes and very inventive characterizations of the record. I will give you just two examples. Bottom of page 9, they're trying to get out of their Unitherm problem, never having this raised in the answer or in the rule 50. And the footnote at the bottom of the page
discusses the rule 50 and states or at least suggests that this argument in terms was raised before the trial court, concluding with the sentence, "Respondents themselves understood LabCorp to
have thereby presented subject matter patentability." to our brief on JMOL. I have that here. This is what we said.
quick answer to LabCorp's mental steps theme is that LabCorp never pled it in the defense. LabCorp pled invalidity on
the basis of 102, 103, 112 on the grounds that the patent was anticipated, obvious, indefinite, non-enabled and procured by inequitable conduct. But the so-called mental
steps doctrine goes instead to the question whether patent covers statutory subject matter. That is governed
exclusively by section 1, 101. LabCorp has never mentioned that section and has never pled the patent is invalid for covering non-statutory subject matter even, in its present JMOL motion. Footnote: LabCorp failed to assert invalidity
on the basis of non-statutory subject matter in any of its five answers or counterclaims or in any of its interrogatory responses. None of its experts, including its patent law
expert, made any such assertion in any reports or testimony. That gets translated in the reply brief as we understood this issue was in front of the court. Now, we made that point in our papers. There
was no response saying, no, wait, district judge, this isn't the case. Rule on section 101. Not a word.
We had the same exchange in the Federal Circuit and, once again, we pointed out this was 101, had been waived six ways from Sunday. Not a response telling the And this
Federal Circuit, this isn't the case, please rule.
is important because you're being asked to tell trial court and three courts of appeals judges that they committed reversible error for failing to address a question that nobody ever asked them. JUSTICE BREYER: Now what do you say in
response to my question to the Solicitor General? MR. ESTRADA: Which question, Justice Breyer?
That they thought it was
obvious, that they thought that obviously the problem here with this particular claim is that it doesn't say specifically which tests this principle is meant to apply to. So it isn't definite enough. It never occurred to
anyone that if you tried to apply it to every test, it was somehow a valid patent, so they made it in the definitive context. Because for 154 years, it's been clear that you
can't take a principle of nature like electricity and simply make a claim for all uses of electricity to create letters. That's their analogy. And they thought by referring to the cases and by referring to the failure to point out definitely what the
tests were this applied to, it violated 112 because otherwise, it wouldn't be a valid patent, which everyone in the patent field would know. they're saying. MR. ESTRADA: and on the law. I think it is wrong on the facts That's at least, I think, what
If it was obvious all along this is an
affirmative defense under section 282 of the patent code, that must be pleaded. One certainly can't be excused for
failing to plead something that, dare I say, is obvious. But let's deal with the Morse case. Mr. Franklin said it's the same statute at the time. Actually, that is not so. At the time Morse was decided,
section 112 and 101 were both together in section 6 of the 1836 patent act. In 1870, Congress broke that off. That's
important because in Diehr, this Court considered a similar issue with respect to the novelty requirement and concluded that once Congress consciously wrote the novelty requirement out of section 101, it was inappropriate to inject, you know, the novelty considerations into section 101. The second answer to the Morse question, Justice Breyer, is that the test for definiteness is not is this definite in the abstract, but is it really too broad in relation to the inventive contribution as disclosed in the specifications. And the contrast here that is important to
keep in mind is between Morse in 1854 and Alexander Graham
Bell, claim 5 of that patent. Just to set it up, in the Morse case, claim 8, it had been known for many years that it was possible to transmit using the electromagnetic current but nobody knew how. And in fact, this Court's ruling on page 107 says this And the problem was
was known by men of science everywhere.
that Morse discovered one particular way to transmit characters at a distance and tried to patent everything that everybody might ever discover using whatever means to print at a distance. Alexander Graham Bell is a good contrast. Claim 5. It was also known that you could use the People had tried and
electronic current to transmit voice.
tried and tried and, in fact, there was somebody in Germany who successfully transmitted music but not words. all in -- in the Court's opinion. Now, Graham Bell This is
discovered that the key was to use continuous undulations in current. Continuous undulations, not discontinuous And had a patent claim, claim 5, which was All users of continuous undulations to transmit The Court said that's absolutely right,
undulations. very broad.
voice or sound.
because he was not trying to claim beyond his inventive contribution to the art. Now, Drs. Stabler and Allen in this case discovered something very important which is all of the
medical tests that existed in the art as late as the 1880s -- the 1980s were wrong. People were horribly misdiagnosed. This is
And there was a test that existed but nobody used. what the record was.
The test for existing homocysteine was almost never used, as Dr. Allen testified to this. evidence in the record. There is
This is why we have jury trials.
And what happened was this test was solely for attempting to diagnose inherited enzyme defects. used it. This is rare. Nobody
There was not a market for it. As a result of the discovery, the medical
community came around and concluded that everything they were doing was wrong and the new test combining the knowledge that it was possible to assay for homocysteine -and by the way, the assaying means only measuring -- total homocysteine with the discovery of the correlation could be put together, as Diehr allows, to come up with a better diagnostic test. And at the time, obviously, and this is, Nobody
again, in the trial testimony, no market for this. wanted to do it. existing tests.
Everybody was just delighted with the And so Dr. Allen and Dr. Stabler had to set
up their own lab to do it. It was after the medical community came around that all of the lab companies became interested in doing this commercially. And I go into this level of detail
because I think it is in part needed to answer the point made by the Solicitor General. In a world in which there
was no commercial use for the existing prior art because it was used rarely, and a market develops solely as a result of people using the test to practice the invention, I think it's analytically incorrect to say that we're trying to monopolize the existing prior art. What has happened is
commercial laboratory companies like LabCorp are selling the test to practice our invention. say -JUSTICE STEVENS: No, but let me just interrupt. It was open to them to
The -- as I understand it, the alleged infringers don't use the same novel process that you use in your assay, in other words, step 1. that correct? MR. ESTRADA: Our -- yes and no. I think there They do not use the step 1 in claim 13, is
is an ambiguity in the question, Justice Stevens, because it is true that the Abbott method -JUSTICE STEVENS: Well, assume it's not Abbott.
Just say I come up with a novel method that's not covered by the patent that I can get the assay results. And say a
doctor says, would you test the blood under your unpatented, novel method and tell me what the results are? MR. ESTRADA: All right. And now if I do that and then
the doctor looks at it and says I think you've got a vitamin B deficiency, has he infringed your patent? MR. ESTRADA: If the test was not ordered for
the purpose of diagnosing -JUSTICE STEVENS: It was ordered for the
purpose of letting the doctor know exactly what the assay would be. Yes. MR. ESTRADA: Well, unless -He hasn't --
JUSTICE STEVENS: MR. ESTRADA:
-- there was a purpose for And while we're
diagnosing the deficiency, I would say no.
on the subject of engaging what our arguments have been all along, we made clear in our brief, and nobody ever responded, at page 38, that claim 13 is only infringed when the assaying and the correlating steps are both performed sequentially for the purpose of diagnosing vitamin B deficiency. JUSTICE STEVENS: Yes, a doctor asked me to
perform under my -- my own method, step 1, which I do it and I give him the results and then he tells the patient, I think you've got a vitamin B deficiency, in that case, he has infringed, if I understand your argument. MR. ESTRADA: If he did it for the purposes of
trying to determine whether you had a vitamin deficiency. Now, if he did it for the purpose of trying to determine, as
in the prior art, whether you had an inherited enzyme condition, that would not be infringing. And this point was
addressed, obviously somewhat indirectly because it was never raised in the court of appeals, by the Federal Circuit at page 9a and 10a where the Federal Circuit explained the correlating step was included as a limit for the intended use of the test as a means to distinguish the intended use for this test from the prior art. JUSTICE BREYER: You're onto something, to me, You have millions of
that is absolutely fundamental.
doctors and scientists and computer people who are working extremely hard to think of useful ideas and if you don't give them an incentive, they may think of less. MR. ESTRADA: Correct. And they're all useful. At
the same time, if you patent all of their ideas, including very useful mini-micro principle ideas, you will establish monopolies throughout this country beyond belief and it will be difficult for people, without paying vast amounts of money, to use their useful ideas. So what principle do we use to separate the scientific idea which can't be patented from the process which can be? I thought that the claim was settled by Now would it make sense -- you can
Morse, Flook and Diehr.
answer any part of this question you want.
Would it make sense to send
this back and say, look, at least address their argument? You can answer any part of that. MR. ESTRADA: Three answers. Number one, under
the patent laws, everybody -- anybody who makes, uses or sells the invention is potentially liable as an infringer. Number two, Congress knows this and it knows that the people who might be liable as infringers are doctors. It passed in
1996 section 287(c) of the patent law that gives doctors a defense to infringement for certain things they do in their offices, not this one. So Congress is perfectly aware of
all of the policy issues being raised and has chosen to give an answer only so far. The third is it is a fundamental misconception to treat the case as though, even if the section 101 issue is in front of the Court -- and it isn't -- whether the issue is whether section 101 means that something is actually patentable as opposed to what Diehr said, which is, is it possibly patentable. patentability. This is subject matter
Is the mouth of the funnel, not the end of
the funnel, and all of the outlandish hypotheticals that we have to deal about how this could be patented don't really deal with the reality of the patent code, which is this is the intake funnel. We have doctrines of obviousness,
anticipation, 112, many other things, all of which were raised at trial and the jury rejected in this case. But the reason why there may be some superficial appeal to the outlandish hypotheticals, Justice Breyer, is because there is an effort to confuse the issue that they're trying to smuggle belatedly into the case, 101, as though it dealt with whether something is actually patentable as opposed to potentially patentable. latter question, whether something is potentially patentable, we have the extremely broad language of section 101 coupled by this Court's cases, in Chakrabarty and Diehr, which said that what Congress intended is for anything under the sun made by man to be potentially patentable. And if And on the
there is some more precise policy issue why a particular invention ought not to be patentable, it is found in section 102, 103, 112, other parts of the patent code, on which they lost in front of the jury. JUSTICE SCALIA: What was made by man here? I mean, if you're
What was made by man here?
talking about the type of assay that your client developed, which was involved in other claims, not in 13, then I'd say, yes, that was made by man. But here, what 13 involves
is simply discovery of the natural principle that when one, when there is the presence of one substance in a human being, there is a deficiency of two other ones. That's just
a natural principle.
What's made by man about that? Well, the -- we don't contend that
the second step of the correlation is independently patentable even though the argument is framed as a -argument. What we contend is patentable and what's allowed
by Diehr is the inventive spark of putting together the discovery of the correlation with a way found elsewhere to measure these important bodily chemicals to produce a diagnostic test. JUSTICE SCALIA: A way found elsewhere if
indeed the Federal Circuit had determined the second step, you know, step 1, do the assay, step 2, correlate. If the
Federal Circuit had said, oh, that requires your using a scale to see how much of one there is and how little of the other, but this Federal Circuit says, all correlate means is be aware of the fact that when one substance is high, the other two are going to be low. MR. ESTRADA: Circuit on two points. That's all it means.
Well, that's unfair to the Federal
Number one, it was very clear to the
Federal Circuit, and in fact I think they said that, I can't put my hand on the page, where they said, there is no issue here about step number one. All that people are fighting
about is the correlating step and what it means. And the problem that LabCorp had in the Federal Circuit with respect to the correlating step, which is a
question they tried to bring up and was cert denied, is that they proposed in the district court the definition that was used by the Federal Circuit, which is a mutual or reciprocal relationship between an elevated level and the vitamin. so having proposed that, it actually makes sense as a diagnostic test, as the Federal Circuit pointed out with the example of the pregnancy test. Now, Justice Scalia, you asked a question earlier -JUSTICE SCALIA: No, please don't get off it -I agree And
because this is my biggest problem with the case.
that what you've said is simply a statement of the natural phenomenon, that when the one substance is high, the other two are low. And simply to be aware of that natural
phenomenon is all that correlation consists of. MR. ESTRADA: Well, it is true but is not
necessarily the case that being aware of a natural phenomenon or of a correlation leads you inevitably to an inventive diagnostic test. There is a correlation between
being tall and being -- you know, between height and weight. If I tell you that somebody's coming to visit you who is 250 pounds, that person is probably not a five year-old. But that
gets me nowhere in terms of turning that into useful knowledge that could be patentable. JUSTICE STEVENS: But you do agree, do you
not, that step 2 by itself would not be patentable? MR. ESTRADA: Stevens. JUSTICE STEVENS: Your point is that even I do agree with that, Justice
though step 2 is performed as the second step of step 1 which is also not patentable, you get together for the patent? MR. ESTRADA: That's true. And if you look at
the Diehr case, it's a perfect example because Diehr had more steps but it was absolutely true in Diehr that every single step, including the mathematical equation, was part of the prior art. And this Court said that's potentially
patentable because you have found a way to put all these disparate things together in a way that makes them potentially useful. JUSTICE BREYER: Does that fall within it?
I mean, I can't resist pointing, as one of these briefs did, the phrase anything under the sun that is made by man comes from a committee report that said something different. It said a person may have invented a machine or
a manufacture, which may include anything under the sun that is made by man. So referring to that doesn't help solve the problem where we're not talking about a machine or a manufacture. Rather we are talking about what has to be
done in order to make an abstract idea fall within the patent act. Now, sometimes you can make that happen by
connecting it with some physical things in the world and sometimes you can't. MR. ESTRADA: But Justice Breyer -And if you have a clear
statement other than Diehr, Flook, Morse, which draws that line properly, let me know. MR. ESTRADA: I think the telephone cases, Bell
and Diehr, are cases that absolutely show that under this Court's cases, this is patentable subject matter. Again,
we're talking about the mouth of the funnel, not the end of the funnel. But let me point something else, Justice Breyer, which is it came from a committee report but it's already been incorporated in this Court's cases in Chakrabarty and in Diehr as exemplary of Congress' determination to have the mouth of the funnel be very wide. And if there are problems with something being ultimately patentable, they are because there is some other requirement of the patent law that -- that -- that should be looked at. One of the other points on the question that Justice Scalia asked, because I think it is important on whether this question is before the Court, is that the rules of this Court, rule 14(1)(f) mandated the petition shall
contain, quote, the statutes involved in the case set out verbatim. And you can pick up the cert petition and indeed
there is an appendix which is at the very last page of the petition, and you can look at it and it says, pertinent statutory provisions. and section 271. There are two statutes, section 112
You can pick up their blue brief and do
the same with the back flap, and we have the fishes and the loaves. Now they have three statutes, 101, 112 and 271. There is no way to construe their question 3 as having been intended all along to encompass a very separate affirmative defense that they never put in front of the trial court or the Federal Circuit. JUSTICE STEVENS: Would the case be different
if they quoted section 101 in their appendix? MR. ESTRADA: Yes, I think it would be
different, Justice Stevens, because then their argument that this was encompassed within one of the questions in the petition might have some surface plausibility. doesn't. Let me just go back and link that point with another aspect of our legal system, which is you see cases of forfeiture and waiver all the time. This term in But it
Unitherm and in Arbaugh, you have already said twice that parties should be held responsible for their procedural
You do that in other areas of the law. And the one that came to mind, to my mind as I
was thinking about this case, Justice Stevens, is going all the way back to Wainwright versus Sykes, because you have cases every year involving habeas corpus, where Wainwright versus Sykes says we have to be careful about sandbagging, and we're going to presume that an indigent defendant on trial for his life in a rural county someplace with a lawyer two years out of law school, who can't find the courthouse, consciously chose to save the federal claims so that he could assert later, have it in his back pocket: to have a rule of forfeiture for sandbagging. Empirically, one may well wonder whether that is empirically likely to be true in a great number of cases. But we don't have to wonder in this case because every well advised corporate defendant, if I am their lawyer, I will advise them to hold this in the back pocket and to have a second trip to the trial court and the court of appeals because in the rules in affirmative defense, rule 8 says you have to plead it and the statute says you have to prove it. And it went all the way up the ladder. And if you tell them that they get to start all over again, what you will have is every well advised corporate defendant will be advised by counsel, like me and by Mr. Franklin, that the way to do is to tire the inventor We're going
out, have a trial and then we can start all over again.
that's no way to run a legal system, especially when they're coming with the most important questions of patent law to this Court with incredibly far-reaching implications and the best that they can say to the Court about why you shouldn't worry about the consequences is, as they say in the closing pages of the reply brief, rule for us and every other case will have to be considered on its own merits. Which I guess
is true as far as it goes but it's about as helpful as telling the Patent Office and the lower courts that life is a fountain. issue -JUSTICE SCALIA: fountain? (Laughter.) MR. ESTRADA: I didn't say it wasn't. I just You mean life isn't a And you know, this Court does not sit to
said that the expression of that thought is not helpful. And insofar as this Court sits to advise the lower courts and the government and the patents office and the investing community who could swing billions of dollars on the basis of an issue that was never litigated in the lower courts, I frankly submit, Justice Scalia, that it would be irresponsible for the Court to reach out and deal with a question for which there was never an adequate factual predicate.
And Wainwright against Sykes
was even decided before AEDPA was passed, too. MR. ESTRADA: implemented that in AEDPA. Exactly. And Congress actually
And so my basic point, Justice
Stevens, is if that the legal system takes the procedural regularity of our courts seriously enough to enforce them in what would seem to some people to be pretty compelling circumstances of life and death, there is little claim on the legal system for a well heeled corporate defendant who has been adjudged to be a willful infringer by a jury to come to this Court and asked to be put in the starting gate again. There is no way that -- again, that is no way to
deal with the legal system. I have nothing further, Justice Stevens. JUSTICE STEVENS: Thank you, Mr. Estrada.
Mr. Franklin, I think you have about four and a half minutes left. REBUTTAL ARGUMENT BY JONATHAN S. FRANKLIN ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER MR. FRANKLIN: to use all that. Just a few points, Your Honors. There was a Hopefully I won't, I won't have
suggestion made that it matters what purpose these tests were undertaken for. That is not true. We had argued
extensively that it did matter, that in fact the doctors
were using this for not detecting vitamin deficiencies but for detecting heart disease. successful on that. That was not -- we were not
What the court of appeals said was any
doctor on pain of malpractice will necessarily perform the correlating every time that doctor looks at a test result. So it doesn't matter why the doctor does that. Second, Morse was clearly a case decided under what is now section 112. I think Mr. Hungar admitted that. It quotes the
The language of the case makes that clear.
relevant statute, and all of this is in our reply brief, and it concludes that the patent in that case was overbroad because it didn't, it contravened what is now section 112 and that is how we argued -JUSTICE STEVENS: at that time? MR. FRANKLIN: They were. Do you disagree with that? He is correct on It was Weren't 112 and 101 combined
JUSTICE STEVENS: MR. FRANKLIN: that.
But look at the case and how it was decided.
decided on the basis of what is now section 112.
cited numerous cases in the lower courts that have interpreted it that way. that too. JUSTICE STEVENS: I don't want to take up your And I believe Mr. Hungar admitted
time on rebuttal but I have to ask you, do you have an
explanation for not quoting section 101 in your papers? MR. FRANKLIN: I think the explanation is that
we cited all of the cases -- for example, Mackay Radio is a case we cited that doesn't itself cite 101. The Court It was a
itself never cited 101 in these cases until 1972.
judicially created exception for laws of nature and natural phenomena. And of course to the extent it is applicable
here, it is applicable either on its own, but also in connection with and as a natural predicate to the 112 inquiry. striking. And there I think the analogy to Morse is quite And what -- in Morse, the Court said that he
could not monopolize all devices and processes used to transmit the characters at a distance through the natural phenomenon of electromagnetism. Here what these patentees are seeking to do is to monopolize all homocysteine tests that are used to, as they say, detect vitamin deficiencies through the natural correlation that they recite. Morse couldn't do that
because it wasn't limited to the one device that he actually invented. Here they cannot do it because it's not limited
to the one homocysteine assay that they in fact invented, that we use and that we pay royalties on every time we use. Finally, I think that the primary gatekeepers here on these kinds of things is the Patent & Trademark Office. I think they're trying their best, but what I heard
from their representative today is that they're not prepared to do anything about these kinds of patents unless this Court gives them further guidance. We are only asking that
the Court give them further guidance on this patent and to say that a patent that claims nothing more than a natural correlation preceded by the inherent and generic step of measuring the input for that correlation is invalid and the judgment that is based upon it should also be reversed. Thank you, Your Honors. JUSTICE STEVENS: submitted. (Whereupon, at 12:11 p.m., the case in the above-titled matter was submitted.) Thank you. The case is
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c# - WCF service returning 404 on method reqests - Stack Overflow
2 I have a WCF service page running only WebGets/WebInvokes over SSL - it works fine on my local machine (self signed cert). On production, however, I can reach service.svc (and it gives me the message about how to consume) but service.svc/AnyRequest returns a 404. Both environments are hosted in IIS 7.5.
I've enabled tracing and the service isn't even picking up any of the method requests (e.g. service.svc/SomeRequest), however it is processing service.svc just fine. It's also listening at https://computername.domain.net/path/service.svc - is this normal? Should it normally be pointing to https://publicfacing.com/path/service.svc?
Also note that the production server is hosting multiple sites within IIS.
Below is the system.serviceModel section of my web.config. The SSLBehave was suggested from here.
<behavior name="SSLBehave">
<add scheme="https" port="443"/>
<behavior name="UserManagement.ajaxAspNetAjaxBehavior">
<webHttp defaultOutgoingResponseFormat="Json" defaultBodyStyle="Wrapped" />
<service name="UserManagement.ajax" behaviorConfiguration="SSLBehave">
<endpoint address="" behaviorConfiguration="UserManagement.ajaxAspNetAjaxBehavior"
binding="webHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="TransportSecurity" contract="UserManagement.ajax" />
c# wcf ssl iis-7.5 share|improve this question asked Apr 26 '13 at 15:36
does the service work if invoked locally?
@theusguy Negative, still returning 404.
If your problem still exists, my answer maybe help you
I would start by checking a number of things;
Permissions on the hosted directory?
.Net version is correct?
Have you added the certificate to the site?
Try putting an image in the same path, can you navigate to that (rule out the odd occasional path mappings)
Though this did not solve my issue, most of these are the best bet for anyone searching for a solution. Enjoy the bounty. :)
May 6 '13 at 2:34
I had the same problem. From what I read, WCF isnt NT Authenticated authorization (or HTTPContext compatible) by default.
I had to add this to my config file for the WCF service web.config in the section:
Which you did, plus this:
And on the actual service class definiation I had to add:
public class DataService : IDataDeliveryServiceContract
share|improve this answer answered May 3 '13 at 14:25
You can implement transport level security using WsHttp bindings. See this article; in your bindings try this biding instead:
The article mentions you should tie up the bindings with the end points.
share|improve this answer answered May 3 '13 at 19:53
Are you talking about manually browsing to the WCF web service, or calling it programatically? I ask because (for example) Silverlight can report a WCF web service as missing for a variety of reasons that would boggle the mind.
share|improve this answer answered May 1 '13 at 3:26
I would tow the line of Derek Nigel Bartram. It is amazing what troubles enabling /disabling a "little" option in IIS can cause. Try plain old HTTP binding. When this works, then you can begin to implement other protocols. I always have a simple HTTP binding handy for situations like this.
share|improve this answer answered May 5 '13 at 9:11
I've just disabled require SSL on the server (no SSL config in the config file, just defaults). Suddenly no 404.
May 9 at 17:06
As you mentioned you can access your service by .svc extension service.svc but not in REST format service.svc/AnyRequest, the problem must be in routing integration. add this to your web.config
<add name="UrlRoutingHandler" preCondition="integratedMode" verb="*" path="UrlRouting.axd"/>
In the IIS 6 The cause of this error must be Check that file exists setting of svc extention, make sure "Check that file exists is unchecked". For more information see IIS Hosted Service Fails.
share|improve this answer edited May 5 '13 at 21:06
Not the answer you're looking for?	Browse other questions tagged c# wcf ssl iis-7.5 or ask your own question.	asked
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Hunch: Pro Digital Talk Forum: Digital Photography Review
Hunch In reply to Ohnostudio,
If my hunch is right, he is well known here under no less than 100 aliases. He comes and goes. Stirs things up for awhile then disappears only to come back. His MO in the past matches this guy's sudden appearance. No name, zero previous posts followed by a barrage of posts all designed to stir things up. He's the ultimate troll sometimes hailing from Australia, Canada, USA. He's being pretty well behaved this time but give it awhile. Things will disintegrate.
If I'm hallucinating, I apologize but all the telltales are there. Maybe I need a life. Reply Reply with quote Complain
Top threads in this forum9Crowd control during group photos.4Newest LR update is confusing....2Cataloging images - what do u use?1Photographers in Rwanda1Best DSLR or MFT camera for Infra Red photography?1Post Transfer of image ownership responsiblities
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value: This website is a website about digital cameras and digital photography, established in November 1998. The website provides comprehensive reviews of digital cameras, lenses and accessories, buying guides, user reviews, and forums for individual cameras, as well as general photography forums.


text:
Financial analysis enel s.p.a. generates, transmits, distributes, a…
Financial analysis enel s.p.a. generates, transmits, distributes, and trades electricity. the company operates hydroelectric, geothermal, and other generating plants. enel, through subsidiaries
03.05.2013Ticker: Enel SpA Benchmark:Currency: BrsaItaliana: ENEL, Currency: EUR FTSE MIB INDEX (FTSEMIB)Sector: Utilities Industry: Electric Utilities Year:Telephone 39-06-8305-1 Revenue (M) Business Segments in EUR Sales (M) Geographic Segments in EUR Sales (M)Website www.enel.it No of Employees Endesa 34169 Europe 1Address Viale Regina Margherita 125/137 Rome, 00198 Italy Generation & Energy management - Italy 25237 ItalyShare Price Performance in EUR Market - Italy 18351 AmericasPrice 2.95 1M Return 17.0% International Operations 8703 Middle East52 Week High 3.30 6M Return 0.3% Infrastructures - Italy 8117 Rest of the World52 Week Low 2.02 52 Wk Return 31.6% Enel Green Power 269652 Wk Beta 1.00 YTD Return -5.9% Services & Holding 2017Credit RatingsBloomberg IG9S&P BBB+ Date 08.03.2012 Outlook NEGMoodys Baa2 Date 05.11.2012 Outlook NEGFitch BBB+ Date 16.01.2013 Outlook NEGValuation Ratios12/09 12/10 12/11 12/12 12/13E 12/14E 12/15EP/E 5.9x 8.0x 7.2x 34.1x 9.0x 8.8x 8.3xEV/EBIT 10.5x 9.9x 9.2x 13.3x - - -EV/EBITDA 7.3x 6.7x 6.1x 6.3x 6.3x 6.3x 6.2xP/S 0.5x 0.5x 0.4x 0.4x 0.3x 0.3x 0.3xP/B 1.1x 0.9x 0.8x 0.8x 0.7x 0.7x 0.6xDiv Yield 6.2% 7.5% 8.3% 4.8% 4.6% 4.6% 4.9%Profitability Ratios %12/09 12/10 12/11 12/12 12/13E 12/14E 12/15EGross Margin - - - - 21.7 21.2 -EBITDA Margin 25.4 23.3 22.1 19.5 19.6 19.4 19.4Operating Margin 17.7 15.6 14.5 9.4 12.0 11.8 11.8Profit Margin 8.9 6.1 5.3 1.0 3.8 3.8 4.0Return on Assets 3.8 2.7 2.4 0.5 1.7 1.7 -Return on Equity 20.8 12.3 10.8 2.3 7.5 7.3 7.3Leverage and Coverage Ratios12/09 12/10 12/11 12/12Current Ratio 0.9 1.1 0.9 1.1 Current Capitalization in EURQuick Ratio 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.6 Common Shares Outstanding (M) 9403.4EBIT/Interest 4.6 4.2 4.1 2.6 Market Capitalization (M) 27758.7Tot Debt/Capital 0.6 0.6 0.5 0.6 Cash and ST Investments (M) 9891.0Tot Debt/Equity 1.5 1.2 1.2 1.3 Total Debt (M) 66539.0Eff Tax Rate % 27.8 29.7 36.3 57.0 Preferred Equity (M) 0.0LT Investments in Affiliate Companies (M) 0.0Investments (M) 16387.0Enterprise Value (M) 100793.7Enel S.p.A. generates, transmits, distributes, and trades electricity. The Companyoperates hydroelectric, geothermal, and other generating plants. Enel, throughsubsidiaries, also provides fixed-line and mobile telephone services, installs publiclighting systems, and operates real estate, factoring, insurance, telecommunications,and Internet service provider businesses.ENEL IM8269973702Company Analysis - Overview35%25%18%9%8%3%2%0%EndesaGeneration & Energy management - ItalyMarket - ItalyInternational OperationsInfrastructures - ItalyEnel Green PowerServices & Holding100%EuropeQ.M.S Advisors | tel: +41 (0)78 922 08 77 | e-mail: info@qmsadv.com |
Enel SpATarget price in EURDate Buy Hold Sell Date Price Target Price Broker Analyst Recommendation Target Date30-Apr-13 23% 65% 13% 3-May-13 2.95 2.92 Grupo Santander OSCAR NAJAR RIOS buy 3.87 3-May-1329-Mar-13 24% 61% 15% 2-May-13 2.94 2.92 ICBPI SIMONA PEDRAZZINI neutral 2.84 2-May-1328-Feb-13 27% 55% 18% 1-May-13 2.94 2.92 AlphaValue MYRIAM COHEN add 3.32 2-May-1331-Jan-13 27% 52% 21% 30-Apr-13 2.94 2.92 Exane BNP Paribas PHILIP GOTTSCHALK underperform 2.50 30-Apr-1331-Dec-12 24% 58% 18% 29-Apr-13 2.99 2.92 Goldman Sachs DARIO CARRADORI neutral/neutral 3.00 26-Apr-1330-Nov-12 21% 61% 18% 26-Apr-13 2.89 2.92 Raymond James EMMANUEL RETIF market perform 17-Apr-1331-Oct-12 24% 61% 15% 25-Apr-13 2.93 2.95 Banca IMI ROBERTO RANIERI hold 2.70 11-Apr-1328-Sep-12 23% 60% 17% 24-Apr-13 2.90 2.95 Morgan Stanley EMMANUEL TURPIN Equalwt/In-Line 2.90 9-Apr-1331-Aug-12 17% 64% 19% 23-Apr-13 2.86 2.97 Credit Suisse STEFANO BEZZATO neutral 2.85 9-Apr-1331-Jul-12 17% 63% 20% 22-Apr-13 2.74 2.97 Banca Akros(ESN) DARIO MICHI hold 2.80 9-Apr-1329-Jun-12 17% 63% 20% 19-Apr-13 2.67 2.98 Societe Generale ALBERTO PONTI buy 3.20 8-Apr-1331-May-12 17% 58% 25% 18-Apr-13 2.65 2.98 Centrobanca EDOARDO MONTALBANO hold 2.70 3-Apr-1317-Apr-13 2.60 2.98 JPMorgan JAVIER GARRIDO underweight 2.60 25-Mar-1316-Apr-13 2.62 2.98 HSBC ADAM DICKENS underweight 2.40 21-Mar-1315-Apr-13 2.64 2.98 S&P Capital IQ CLIVE ROBERTS buy 2.93 18-Mar-1312-Apr-13 2.65 2.98 Day by Day VALERIE GASTALDY hold 18-Mar-1311-Apr-13 2.70 2.98 Deutsche Bank VIRGINIA SANZ DE MADRID hold 2.80 15-Mar-1310-Apr-13 2.70 2.98 Independent Research GmbH SVEN DIERMEIER hold 2.70 14-Mar-139-Apr-13 2.61 3.03 Espirito Santo Investment Bank Research FERNANDO GARCIA GARCIA neutral 3.10 14-Mar-138-Apr-13 2.58 3.04 Natixis PHILIPPE OURPATIAN neutral 2.64 14-Mar-135-Apr-13 2.58 3.04 Kepler Capital Markets CLAUDIA INTROVIGNE hold 2.60 13-Mar-134-Apr-13 2.53 3.04 Landesbank Baden-Wuerttemberg ERKAN AYCICEK hold 3.00 6-Feb-133-Apr-13 2.52 3.04 Berenberg Bank TEAM COVERAGE hold 3.30 5-Feb-132-Apr-13 2.60 3.04 Barclays SUSANNA INVERNIZZI equalweight 3.50 25-Jan-131-Apr-13 2.55 3.04 EVA Dimensions AUSTIN BURKETT overweight 17-Jan-1329-Mar-13 2.55 3.04 Equita SIM SpA ROBERTO LETIZIA hold 3.30 30-Nov-1228-Mar-13 2.55 3.04 Banco Sabadell JORGE GONZALEZ SADORNIL sell 3-Aug-1227-Mar-13 2.54 3.06 Nord/LB HEINO HAMMANN hold 5-Jun-1226-Mar-13 2.57 3.06 Hammer Partners SA CHRIS MOORE sell 8-Mar-1225-Mar-13 2.61 3.06 DZ Bank AG HASIM SENGUEL hold 3.20 18-Nov-11Company Analysis - Analysts RatingsBuy and Sell Recommendations vs Price and Target Price17% 17% 17% 17%23% 24% 21% 24% 27% 27% 24% 23%58%63% 63% 64%60% 61%61% 58% 52% 55% 61% 65%25%20% 20% 19% 17% 15% 18% 18% 21% 18% 15% 13%0%20%40%60%80%100%mai.12 juin.12 juil.12 août.12 sept.12 oct.12 nov.12 déc.12 janv.13 févr.13 mars.13 avr.13BrokerRecommendation01122334455PriceBuy Hold Sell Price Target PriceBrokers Target Price0112233445GrupoSantanderICBPIAlphaValueExaneBNPParibasGoldmanSachsRaymondJamesBancaIMIMorganStanleyCreditSuisseBancaAkros(ESN)SocieteGeneraleCentrobancaJPMorganHSBCS&PCapitalIQDaybyDayDeutscheBankIndependentResearchGmbHEspiritoSantoInvestmentBankResearchNatixisKeplerCapitalMarketsLandesbankBaden-WuerttembergBerenbergBankBarclaysEVADimensionsEquitaSIMSpABancoSabadellNord/LBHammerPartnersSADZBankAGQ.M.S Advisors | tel: +41 (0)78 922 08 77 | e-mail: info@qmsadv.com |
03.05.2013Enel SpAOwnership Statistics Geographic Ownership DistributionShares Outstanding (M) 9403.4 Italy 81.69%Float 68.8% United States 5.98%Short Interest (M) Luxembourg 4.24%Short Interest as % of Float France 1.91%Days to Cover Shorts Ireland 1.50%Institutional Ownership 38.70% Germany 1.35%Retail Ownership 61.30% Britain 0.81%Insider Ownership 0.00% Others 2.53%Institutional Ownership DistributionGovernment 80.73%Investment Advisor 19.16%Insurance Company 0.06%Hedge Fund Manager 0.05%Pricing data is in EUR Others 0.00%Top 20 Owners:Holder Name Position Position Change Market Value % of Ownership Report Date Source CountryMINISTERO DELLECONO 2937984993 0 8672931699 31.24% 20.11.2012 EXCH ITALYBLACKROCK 100480950 230633 296619764 1.07% 01.05.2013 ULT-AGG UNITED STATESVANGUARD GROUP INC 68741014 2459753 202923473 0.73% 31.03.2013 MF-AGG UNITED STATESPICTET ASSET MANAGEM 52151916 -26014603 153952456 0.55% 31.01.2013 MF-AGG BRITAINFMR LLC 31343024 6530806 92524607 0.33% 31.03.2013 ULT-AGG UNITED STATESAMUNDI 22887035 8411425 67562527 0.24% 31.12.2012 MF-AGG FRANCEMERCURY ASSET MANAGE 16888699 0 49855439 0.18% 01.05.2013 MF-AGG IRELANDSTATE STREET 15692915 1496958 46325485 0.17% 02.05.2013 ULT-AGG UNITED STATESBNP PARIBAS INV PART 13158176 -1671692 38842936 0.14% 28.02.2013 ULT-AGG FRANCEARCA SGR SPA 12811686 -50000 37820097 0.14% 28.03.2013 MF-AGG ITALYALLIANZ ASSET MANAGE 12805557 -24665 37802004 0.14% 28.03.2013 ULT-AGG GERMANYAVIVA PLC 9331460 317904 27546470 0.10% 28.03.2013 MF-AGG BRITAINCREDIT SUISSE ASSET 8917565 24838 26324652 0.09% 28.02.2013 MF-AGG SWITZERLANDING INTERNATIONAL AD 7795262 -260134 23011613 0.08% 31.01.2013 MF-AGG LUXEMBOURGUNION INVESTMENT LUX 7754520 -198780 22891343 0.08% 28.09.2012 MF-AGG LUXEMBOURGBANK OF NEW YORK MEL 7092561 21014 20937240 0.08% 01.05.2013 MF-AGG UNITED STATESDEKA INVESTMENT GMBH 6703470 3326443 19788643 0.07% 28.02.2013 MF-AGG GERMANYJOHN HANCOCK INVESTM 6490913 -438855 19161175 0.07% 28.02.2013 MF-AGG UNITED STATESSCHRODER INVESTMENT 6322995 2679130 18665481 0.07% 31.03.2013 MF-AGG BRITAINWELLS FARGO 6306114 -1854 18615649 0.07% 28.02.2013 ULT-AGGTop 5 Insiders:Holder Name Position Position Change Market Value % of Ownership Report Date SourceCompany Analysis - OwnershipOwnership Type39%61%0%Institutional Ownership Retail Ownership Insider OwnershipGeographic Ownership81%3%4%2%2%1% 1%6%Italy United States Luxembourg FranceIreland Germany Britain OthersInstitutional Ownership81%0% 0%0%19%Government Investment Advisor Insurance CompanyHedge Fund Manager OthersTOP 20 ALLQ.M.S Advisors | tel: +41 (0)78 922 08 77 | e-mail: info@qmsadv.com |
Enel SpAFinancial information is in EUR (M)Periodicity: 12/02 12/03 12/04 12/05 12/06 12/07 12/08 12/09 12/10 12/11 12/12 12/13E 12/14E 12/15EIncome StatementRevenue 28415 28937 28658 32272 37497 42734 59577 62498 71943 77573 82699 81744 82557 84309- Cost of Goods SoldGross Income 17738 17502- Selling, General & Admin Expenses 26245 25613 25141 28521 32957 36907 51643 53330 62119 68236 77154(Research & Dev Costs) 100 16Operating Income 2880 4732 5870 5538 5556 6781 9541 11032 11258 11278 7735 9840 9738 9921- Interest Expense 1464 1555 771 686 635 1498 3274 2416 2667 2753 2932- Foreign Exchange Losses (Gains) 0 0 -22 29 -83 -319 -167 -17 509 417 -67- Net Non-Operating Losses (Gains) -963 -216 103 29 -164 -306 55 -712 8 -242 50Pretax Income 2379 3393 5018 4794 5168 5908 6379 9345 8074 8350 4820 6938 7011 7373- Income Tax Expense 608 966 2116 1934 2067 1956 585 2597 2401 3027 2745Income Before XO Items 1771 2427 2902 2860 3101 3952 5794 6748 5673 5323 2075- Extraordinary Loss Net of Tax 155 -1272 0 -179 -240 158- Minority Interests -237 -82 116 237 65 215 741 1004 1283 1210 1210Diluted EPS Before XO Items 0.42 0.41 0.43 0.53 0.72 0.69 0.47 0.44 0.09Net Income Adjusted* 2008 2509 3419 2623 3036 3433 5053 5553 4380 4148 3455 3074 3114 3343EPS Adjusted 0.29 0.36 0.50 0.41 0.43 0.49 0.72 0.66 0.47 0.44 0.37 0.33 0.34 0.35Dividends Per Share 0.32 0.32 0.61 0.56 0.43 0.43 0.43 0.25 0.28 0.26 0.15 0.14 0.14 0.15Payout Ratio % 108.7 87.0 155.0 148.1 104.7 81.1 60.0 40.9 60.0 64.0 163.1 0.42 0.40 0.41Total Shares Outstanding 6878 6878 6924 6985 7006 7016 7018 9403 9403 9403 9403Diluted Shares Outstanding 6901 6954 7073 7096 7017 8369 9403 9403 9403EBITDA 7357 9248 9355 8407 7909 9694 13722 15883 16768 17110 16150 16054 16053 16342*Net income excludes extraordinary gains and losses and one-time charges.Equivalent EstimatesCompany Analysis - Financials I/IVFiscal YearQ.M.S Advisors | tel: +41 (0)78 922 08 77 | e-mail: info@qmsadv.com |
Periodicity: 12/02 12/03 12/04 12/05 12/06 12/07 12/08 12/09 12/10 12/11 12/12 12/13E 12/14E 12/15EBalance SheetTotal Current Assets 15382 17048 13532 12746 13000 35895 32903 29462 37775 35967 38539+ Cash & Near Cash Items 364 426 331 476 547 1234 5106 4170 5164 7015 9891+ Short Term Investments 552 545 32 28 25+ Accounts & Notes Receivable 6924 6972 8027 8316 7958 11576 12378 13010 12505 11570 11719+ Inventories 3266 4211 1345 884 1209 1726 2182 2500 2803 3148 3338+ Other Current Assets 4276 4894 3797 3042 3261 21359 13237 9782 17303 14234 13591Total Long-Term Assets 52555 52791 51846 37756 41537 94956 100304 132869 130277 133924 133117+ Long Term Investments 282 91 68 170 481 37 462 295 299 245 197Gross Fixed Assets 84274 87531 86751 74588 82139 109023 111371 130281 161419 166648 173382Accumulated Depreciation 46741 49998 50049 44400 47293 48541 49846 53694 83325 86056 90267+ Net Fixed Assets 37533 37533 36702 30188 34846 60482 61525 76587 78094 80592 83115+ Other Long Term Assets 14740 15167 15076 7398 6210 34437 38317 55987 51884 53087 49805Total Current Liabilities 22301 23290 18607 13446 13586 29356 33116 33262 34990 40706 35371+ Accounts Payable 6664 5602 6818 6610 6188 9622 10600 11174 12373 12931 13903+ Short Term Borrowings 8371 8648 6829 2472 1409 8014 8577 10451 11208 14471 8027+ Other Short Term Liabilities 7266 9040 4960 4364 5989 11720 13939 11637 11409 13304 13441Total Long Term Liabilities 25381 27190 27705 17640 21926 74862 73796 83136 79517 74885 83127+ Long Term Borrowings 18292 20488 20291 10967 12194 53826 53653 58814 55031 51010 58512+ Other Long Term Borrowings 7089 6702 7414 6673 9732 21036 20143 24322 24486 23875 24615Total Liabilities 47682 50480 46312 31086 35512 104218 106912 116398 114507 115591 118498+ Long Preferred Equity 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0+ Minority Interest 70 191 1113 359 565 7080 5897 12665 15684 15650 16387+ Share Capital & APIC 6063 6063 6312 6668 6783 6835 6848 14695 14695 14695 14695+ Retained Earnings & Other Equity 14709 15061 11641 12389 11677 12718 13550 18573 23166 23955 22076Total Shareholders Equity 20842 21315 19066 19416 19025 26633 26295 45933 53545 54300 53158Total Liabilities & Equity 68524 71795 65378 50502 54537 130851 133207 162331 168052 169891 171656Book Value Per Share 3.02 3.07 2.59 2.73 2.63 2.79 2.91 3.54 4.03 4.11 3.91 4.26 4.43 4.63Tangible Book Value Per Share 1.13 1.10 1.14 2.42 2.21 -0.74 -0.77 -0.58 -0.13 -0.04 0.09Company Analysis - Financials II/IVQ.M.S Advisors | tel: +41 (0)78 922 08 77 | e-mail: info@qmsadv.com |
Periodicity: 12/02 12/03 12/04 12/05 12/06 12/07 12/08 12/09 12/10 12/11 12/12 12/13E 12/14E 12/15ECash FlowsNet Income 2008 2509 2631 3895 3036 3916 5293 5586 4390 4113 865 3094 3192 3463+ Depreciation & Amortization 4477 4516 3485 2869 2353 2913 4181 4851 5510 5832 8415+ Other Non-Cash Adjustments -2135 518 253 -792 748 38 -1427 -999 996 640 1171+ Changes in Non-Cash Capital 443 -370 -1534 -279 619 -797 2463 -512 829 1128 -36Cash From Operating Activities 4793 7173 4835 5693 6756 6070 10510 8926 11725 11713 10415+ Disposal of Fixed Assets 3778 884 0 0 0 0 0+ Capital Expenditures -5109 -3623 -3538 -3037 -2759 -4882 -7059 -6591 -6468 -6957 -6522 -5928 -5565 -4929+ Increase in Investments -2378 -1638 -126 -524 0 0 -42+ Decrease in Investments 0 1941 4652 0 267 0+ Other Investing Activities -497 -318 -230 1 385 -30738 4961 -6085 1558 -443 -66Cash From Investing Activities -4206 -4695 -1953 1092 -2374 -35353 -2140 -12676 -4910 -7400 -6588+ Dividends Paid -2183 -2183 -4256 -3472 -3959 -3180 -3401 -3135 -3147 -3517 -2229+ Change in Short Term Borrowings 924 -2056 0 0 0 0+ Increase in Long Term Borrowings 1382 2069 1039 0 1524 33356 4788 21990 5497 10486 13739+ Decrease in Long Term Borrowings 0 0 -3524 -1995 0 -5916 -24180 -10748 -9427 -12505+ Increase in Capital Stocks 0 241 339 108 50 12 7991+ Decrease in Capital Stocks 0 0 0 0 0 0+ Other Financing Activities -897 -256 5 17 4 -52 -105 162 2636 -125 29Cash From Financing Activities -774 -2426 -2971 -6640 -4318 30174 -4622 2828 -5762 -2583 -966Net Changes in Cash -187 52 -89 145 64 891 3748 -922 1053 1730 2861Free Cash Flow (CFO-CAPEX) -316 3550 1297 2656 3997 1188 3451 2335 5257 4756 3893 3014 3763 4108Free Cash Flow To Firm 774 4662 1743 3065 4378 2190 6425 4080 7131 6511 5155Free Cash Flow To Equity 5768 4447 34544 2323 145 6 5815 5127Free Cash Flow per Share -0.05 0.52 0.19 0.38 0.57 0.17 0.49 0.28 0.56 0.51 0.41Company Analysis - Financials III/IVQ.M.S Advisors | tel: +41 (0)78 922 08 77 | e-mail: info@qmsadv.com |
Periodicity: 12/02 12/03 12/04 12/05 12/06 12/07 12/08 12/09 12/10 12/11 12/12 12/13E 12/14E 12/15ERatio AnalysisValuation RatiosPrice Earnings 15.0x 13.0x 15.2x 14.3x 15.9x 13.5x 5.5x 5.9x 8.0x 7.2x 34.1x 9.0x 8.8x 8.3xEV to EBIT 19.4x 12.9x 12.3x 9.8x 11.1x 17.4x 9.5x 10.5x 9.9x 9.2x 13.3xEV to EBITDA 7.6x 6.6x 7.7x 6.4x 7.8x 12.2x 6.6x 7.3x 6.7x 6.1x 6.3x 6.3x 6.3x 6.2xPrice to Sales 1.1x 1.1x 1.5x 1.3x 1.3x 1.2x 0.5x 0.5x 0.5x 0.4x 0.4x 0.3x 0.3x 0.3xPrice to Book 1.4x 1.5x 2.5x 2.1x 2.6x 2.6x 1.4x 1.1x 0.9x 0.8x 0.8x 0.7x 0.7x 0.6xDividend Yield 7.3% 6.7% 9.5% 9.5% 6.3% 6.0% 10.8% 6.2% 7.5% 8.3% 4.8% 4.6% 4.6% 4.9%Profitability RatiosGross Margin 21.7% 21.2%EBITDA Margin 25.9% 32.0% 32.6% 26.1% 21.1% 22.7% 23.0% 25.4% 23.3% 22.1% 19.5% 19.6% 19.4% 19.4%Operating Margin 10.1% 16.4% 20.5% 17.2% 14.8% 15.9% 16.0% 17.7% 15.6% 14.5% 9.4% 12.0% 11.8% 11.8%Profit Margin 7.1% 8.7% 9.2% 12.1% 8.1% 9.2% 8.9% 8.9% 6.1% 5.3% 1.0% 3.8% 3.8% 4.0%Return on Assets 3.0% 3.6% 3.9% 6.7% 5.8% 4.2% 4.0% 3.8% 2.7% 2.4% 0.5% 1.7% 1.7%Return on Equity 9.6% 12.0% 13.5% 21.0% 16.2% 20.6% 26.5% 20.8% 12.3% 10.8% 2.3% 7.5% 7.3% 7.3%Leverage & Coverage RatiosCurrent Ratio 0.69 0.73 0.73 0.95 0.96 1.22 0.99 0.89 1.08 0.88 1.09Quick Ratio 0.35 0.34 0.45 0.66 0.63 0.44 0.53 0.52 0.50 0.46 0.61Interest Coverage Ratio (EBIT/I) 1.97 3.04 7.61 8.07 8.75 4.53 2.91 4.57 4.22 4.10 2.64Tot Debt/Capital 0.56 0.58 0.59 0.41 0.42 0.70 0.70 0.60 0.55 0.55 0.56Tot Debt/Equity 1.28 1.37 1.42 0.69 0.72 2.32 2.37 1.51 1.24 1.21 1.25OthersAsset Turnover 0.43 0.42 0.42 0.56 0.71 0.46 0.45 0.42 0.44 0.46 0.48Accounts Receivable Turnover 4.14 4.16 3.82 3.95 4.61 4.38 4.97 4.92 5.64 6.44 7.10Accounts Payable TurnoverInventory TurnoverEffective Tax Rate 25.6% 28.5% 42.2% 40.3% 40.0% 33.1% 9.2% 27.8% 29.7% 36.3% 57.0%Company Analysis - Financials IV/IVQ.M.S Advisors | tel: +41 (0)78 922 08 77 | e-mail: info@qmsadv.com |
ENEL SPA E.ON SE EDF IBERDROLA SA A2A SPA RWE AG ACEA SPA GDF SUEZ ENDESA TERNA SPA SNAM SPA GAS NATURAL SDG ACQUE POTABILI EDP FORTUM OYJ12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/2012 12/20123.30 19.80 17.91 4.29 0.65 36.47 5.45 20.35 19.53 3.58 3.86 16.39 0.86 2.63 16.6914.01.2013 14.09.2012 03.07.2012 02.01.2013 03.05.2013 12.09.2012 03.05.2013 21.08.2012 13.03.2013 02.05.2013 23.04.2013 03.05.2013 18.10.2012 25.04.2013 08.05.20122.02 12.42 13.39 2.63 0.29 25.83 3.61 14.05 11.30 2.50 3.07 8.36 0.43 1.63 12.8124.07.2012 08.02.2013 29.11.2012 26.07.2012 25.07.2012 19.04.2013 14.06.2012 01.03.2013 25.07.2012 25.07.2012 24.07.2012 23.07.2012 31.07.2012 31.05.2012 23.07.201219556433 13678918 2094980 22882805 22724276 2227976 152056 3340397 94084 4308422 3144732 749352 500 1956544 28595512.96 13.97 17.84 4.20 0.63 27.72 5.32 16.66 17.45 3.51 3.74 16.31 0.79 2.61 14.52-10.2% -29.5% -0.4% -2.2% -2.9% -24.0% -2.5% -18.2% -10.6% -1.9% -3.0% -0.5% -8.2% -0.8% -13.0%46.6% 12.4% 33.2% 59.6% 118.8% 7.3% 47.1% 18.5% 54.4% 40.3% 22.1% 95.0% 82.1% 60.3% 13.3%9403.4 1906.8 1846.7 6053.2 3106.0 614.7 213.0 2357.3 1058.8 2010.0 3568.3 1000.7 36.0 3624.6 888.427853 27944 32975 26368 1961 16991 1132 40186 18475 7055 12661 16316 28 9544 1289966539.0 25944.0 64501.0 32884.1 5024.0 19946.0 3104.4 57552.0 10860.0 8978.8 12554.0 20201.0 31.0 20524.0 8777.0- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -16387.0 3862.0 4854.0 324.8 851.0 1613.0 77.3 11462.0 5716.0 - 1.0 1618.0 - 3239.0 616.09891.0 6097.0 22307.0 6575.5 553.0 5276.0 423.7 11383.0 7423.0 2510.1 15.0 5693.0 7.7 2123.0 963.0100888 51653 80023 54025 7283 33274 3890 97817 27628 13524 24800 32442 60 31184 20999LFY 82699.0 132093.0 72729.0 34201.2 6281.0 50771.0 3526.3 97038.0 33933.0 1732.8 3730.0 24904.0 58.6 16339.9 6159.0LTM 82699.0 132093.0 72729.0 34597.8 6281.0 50771.0 3526.3 97038.0 33781.0 1732.8 3751.0 24904.0 58.6 16048.9 6249.0CY+1 81744.2 111418.7 73749.5 33746.5 6899.0 53546.9 3549.8 81162.0 33336.3 1862.0 3577.1 24437.8 - 15466.6 6344.3CY+2 82556.8 112638.7 75979.2 34867.6 6957.0 53803.9 3597.0 81900.2 34224.8 1917.0 3660.1 25224.7 - 16116.3 6470.1LFY 1.2x 0.4x 1.0x 1.5x 1.1x 0.7x 1.1x 1.0x 0.8x 7.2x 6.5x 1.2x 0.9x 1.8x 3.6xLTM 1.2x 0.4x 1.0x 1.5x 1.1x 0.7x 1.1x 1.0x 0.8x 7.2x 6.4x 1.2x 0.9x 1.8x 3.5xCY+1 1.1x 0.5x 1.1x 1.6x 1.0x 0.6x 1.0x 1.1x 0.9x 7.3x 7.2x 1.3x - 2.0x 3.4xCY+2 1.0x 0.4x 1.1x 1.5x 1.0x 0.6x 1.0x 1.0x 0.8x 7.3x 7.3x 1.2x - 1.9x 3.3xLFY 16150.0 8443.0 14342.0 7177.7 990.0 9055.0 695.2 18401.0 7005.0 1372.7 2813.0 4865.0 12.8 3612.0 2360.0LTM 16150.0 8443.0 14342.0 7639.5 1098.0 9201.0 627.4 18401.0 7031.0 1372.7 2822.0 4885.0 12.1 3720.6 2413.0CY+1 16053.9 9554.8 15982.1 7580.0 1160.3 8828.3 713.3 13786.8 6625.3 1445.4 2781.9 4906.8 - 3645.3 2446.0CY+2 16053.2 9754.7 17030.6 7816.1 1157.2 8597.0 730.3 13928.0 6760.7 1498.9 2855.7 5024.0 - 3860.7 2428.7LFY 6.3x 6.0x 5.1x 7.0x 6.7x 3.9x 5.4x 5.1x 3.9x 9.1x 8.6x 6.1x 4.1x 8.3x 9.3xLTM 6.3x 6.0x 5.1x 6.6x 6.1x 3.9x 5.9x 5.1x 3.8x 9.1x 8.6x 6.1x 4.4x 7.9x 9.1xCY+1 5.4x 5.3x 5.0x 7.2x 6.0x 3.9x 5.1x 6.2x 4.4x 9.4x 9.3x 6.6x - 8.4x 8.8xCY+2 5.2x 5.1x 4.8x 6.8x 5.8x 4.0x 5.0x 6.0x 3.9x 9.3x 9.3x 6.2x - 7.8x 8.8xLFY 0.09 1.81 2.06 0.46 0.06 1.95 0.36 1.33 1.93 0.23 0.23 1.43 0.00 0.28 -LTM 0.09 1.14 1.80 0.44 0.06 2.13 0.36 0.71 1.92 0.23 0.22 1.46 0.00 0.30 1.48CY+1 0.33 1.32 1.74 0.40 0.06 3.89 0.54 1.36 1.72 0.23 0.27 1.35 - 0.26 1.29CY+2 0.34 1.39 1.92 0.41 0.05 3.48 0.55 1.42 1.84 0.25 0.29 1.44 - 0.28 1.25LFY 32.2x 12.3x 9.9x 9.6x 10.8x 13.0x 14.6x 23.4x 9.1x 15.2x 17.0x 11.2x 392.5x 8.7x 9.8xLTM - 7.7x 9.9x 9.5x 10.8x 13.0x 14.6x 12.5x 8.9x 15.2x - - 14017.9x 8.8x -CY+1 9.1x 10.6x 10.3x 10.5x 11.2x 7.1x 9.8x 12.3x 10.1x 15.1x 13.7x 12.1x - 10.1x 11.2xCY+2 8.8x 10.1x 9.3x 10.3x 12.5x 8.0x 9.6x 11.7x 9.5x 13.9x 12.9x 11.3x - 9.4x 11.7x1 Year 6.6% 16.9% 11.4% 8.1% 3.0% 3.3% 9.6% 7.0% 3.8% 8.9% 5.4% 18.2% 3.6% 8.1% (0.0%)5 Year 9.1% 16.4% 6.1% 8.2% - 4.1% 63.7% 7.2% 43.3% 6.9% 18.1% 19.2% (4.5%) 9.5% 7.1%1 Year (5.6%) 97.8% 1.7% 2.5% 55.4% 9.3% 22.2% 14.5% (3.6%) 12.4% 7.3% 3.6% 4.9% (3.8%) (1.5%)5 Year 10.7% (5.3%) (1.7%) 8.0% 14.2% 3.1% 8.2% 20.7% 1.1% 7.2% 13.2% 17.0% (3.0%) 6.1% 3.4%LTM 19.5% 6.4% 19.7% 22.1% 17.5% 18.1% 17.8% 19.0% 20.8% 79.2% 75.2% 19.6% 21.2% 23.2% 38.6%CY+1 19.6% 8.6% 21.7% 22.5% 16.8% 16.5% 20.1% 17.0% 19.9% 77.6% 77.8% 20.1% - 23.6% 38.6%CY+2 19.4% 8.7% 22.4% 22.4% 16.6% 16.0% 20.3% 17.0% 19.8% 78.2% 78.0% 19.9% - 24.0% 37.5%Total Debt / Equity % 181.0% 74.2% 249.4% 97.4% 176.5% 134.6% 247.3% 96.3% 52.6% 321.3% 211.7% 152.3% 36.9% 250.5% 86.0%Total Debt / Capital % 55.6% 40.1% 67.7% 49.1% 57.6% 54.8% 70.0% 44.7% 29.2% 76.3% 67.9% 57.6% 26.9% 64.2% 44.8%Total Debt / EBITDA 4.120x 3.073x 4.497x 4.335x 4.576x 2.168x 4.948x 3.128x 1.545x 6.541x 4.302x 4.135x 3.585x 5.549x 3.793xNet Debt / EBITDA 3.508x 2.351x 2.942x 3.586x 4.072x 1.594x 4.273x 2.509x 0.489x 4.712x 4.301x 2.970x 2.610x 4.953x 3.080xEBITDA / Int. Expense 5.508x 2.900x 5.871x 4.822x 3.944x 7.250x 5.693x 7.199x 10.317x 6.826x 7.015x 5.624x 5.398x 3.460x 7.867xS&P LT Credit Rating BBB+ A- A+ BBB BBB BBB+ BBB- A *- BBB+ A- A- BBB - BB+ A-S&P LT Credit Rating Date 08.03.2012 27.07.2012 17.01.2012 28.11.2012 05.04.2012 27.07.2012 31.10.2012 29.01.2013 08.03.2012 08.03.2012 13.06.2012 17.12.2010 - 01.02.2012 27.11.2012Moodys LT Credit Rating Baa2 A3 Aa3 (P)Baa1 Baa3 A3 - A1 WR Baa1 Baa1 WR - Ba1 A2Moodys LT Credit Rating Date 05.11.2012 05.10.2011 14.01.2009 05.11.2012 19.11.2012 19.07.2011 - 03.07.2012 25.02.2009 16.07.2012 27.09.2012 27.10.1999 - 16.02.2012 15.07.200552-Week High Date52-Week LowLatest Fiscal Year:52-Week HighTotal DebtMarket CapitalizationDaily Volume52-Week Low % ChangeCurrent Price (5/dd/yy)52-Week High % ChangeCash and EquivalentsEBITDAEV/EBITDAEnterprise ValueValuationPreferred Stock52-Week Low DateMinority InterestTotal Common Shares (M)P/ERevenue GrowthTotal RevenueEV/Total RevenueEPSEBITDA GrowthEBITDA MarginCredit RatingsLeverage/Coverage RatiosCompany Analysis - Peers ComparisionQ.M.S Advisors | tel: +41 (0)78 922 08 77 | e-mail: info@qmsadv.com |

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