Posts Tagged: "claim construction"

CAFC Says District Court’s Claim Construction Rendered Dependent Claims ‘Meaningless’

On April 4, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) issued a precedential decision in Littelfuse, Inc. v. Mersen USA EP Corp. clarifying how U.S. district courts handling claim construction are to construe a patent’s independent claims in light of limitations included in dependent claims. While the Federal Circuit found that the District of Massachusetts was correct to give meaning to the term “fastening stem” by looking to uses of “fastening” and “stem” within the patent, the appellate court vacated and remanded a stipulated judgment of non-infringement, as the district court’s construction of certain independent claim terms would render superfluous other claim terms from dependent claims.

CAFC Overturns Win for Nintendo Based on District Court’s Incorrect Claim Construction Analysis

On April 1, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed and remanded a summary judgment decision by the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in an infringement suit brought by Genuine Enabling Technology (Genuine) against Nintendo Company and Nintendo of America (collectively “Nintendo”) for allegedly infringing certain claims of Genuine’s U.S. Patent No. 6,219,730 (‘730 patent). The CAFC reversed the district court’s summary judgment decision because the district court erred in its construction of “input signal” and should have construed the term to mean “a signal having an audio or higher frequency.”

ED of Texas Adopts Magistrate’s Claim Construction in Finding No Infringement of Debit Card Patents

On March 16, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas Marshall Division adopted the Report and Recommendation (R&R) of a magistrate judge and granted two motions of non-infringement for Simon Property Group L.P. (Simon) and Blackhawk Network, Inc. (Blackhawk). AlexSam, Inc. filed suit for patent infringement against Simon and Blackhawk, alleging infringement of U.S. Patent No. 6,000,608 (the ‘608 patent). AlexSam asserted that “[t]he ‘608 Patent covers a variety of important technologies relating to the debit card industry,” and “[t]he multifunction card system disclosed in the ‘608 Patent enabled consumers and retailers to use existing point-of-sales devices, the existing banking infrastructure, and a bank identification number (BIN) to perform financial transactions.”

CAFC Rules District Court Erred on Legal Standard for Claim Indefiniteness

On January 27, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) reversed the decision of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California to invalidate claims in two related patents, holding that the district court used the incorrect legal standard for indefiniteness. Nature Simulation Systems, Inc. (NSS) is the owner of United States Patents No. 10,120,961 (the ‘961 patent) and No. 10,109,105 (the ‘105 patent). Both patents relate to computer-implemented methods for building three-dimensional objects employing a computation method called “Boolean operation.” NSS brought an infringement action against Autodesk, Inc. in district court alleging infringement of claims 1 and 8 of the ‘961 patent and claim 1 of the ‘105 patent.

CAFC Nixes District Court Claim Construction in Win for Firearms Patent Owner

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Friday ruled that a California district court erred in its claim construction relating to Evolusion Concepts, Inc.’s patent for a method of converting a semi-automatic rifle with a detachable magazine to one with a fixed magazine. The CAFC reversed the court’s grant of summary judgment of non-infringement for Juggernaut Tactical, Inc., reversed a denial of summary judgment of direct infringement, vacated the award of attorneys’ fees and remanded for further proceedings.