The Federal Circuit reversed the district court’s claim construction, and held that the claim language does not require that the start and duration of remote-transmission intervals be communicated prior to the beginning of the cycle. St. Jude had not explained why, in accordance with the specification, it was not sufficient that a remote know roughly when to expect an upcoming cycle to begin, rather than its exact starting time, and why such interval information could not be communicated during a cycle. The Court postulated that a remote unit could power up its communications equipment for the entirety of a first cycle, receive interval information whenever it was transmitted, then only power up that equipment during its assigned interval for subsequent cycles.
You may recall that I wrote back in September of last year on the case of Cardiac Pacemakers, Inc. v. St. Jude Medical, Inc. See CAFC Says “Patented Invention” Does Not Include Methods . In Cardiac Pacemakers, all but one member of the en banc Federal Circuit ruled that 35 U.S.C. § 271(f) doesn’t apply to patented processes. Judge Newman…