In In re Man Machine Interface Tech. LLC, [2015-1562] (April 19, 2016),\u00a0the Federal Circuit\u00a0affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part, vacated-in-part, and remanded the PTAB’s affirmance of the rejection of claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,069,614 in ex parte reexamination.<\/p>\n
The patent is directed to a remote control device for making selections on television or computer screens.\u00a0 The examiner construed the claim term \u201cadapted to be held by the human hand\u201d in the\u00a0patent broadly to include various \u201cforms of grasp or grasping by a user\u2019s hand,\u201d such as the grasping of the mouse on a desk top.\u00a0 The examiner similarly interpreted the claim term \u201cthumb switch\u201d\u00a0\u00a0as \u201cmerely requir[ing] that a switch . . . be capable of being enabled\/activated by a thumb but . . . not preclud[ing] another digit, i.e. index finger.\u201d\u00a0 Based upon these broad constructions, the reexamination examiner found the claims anticipated.\u00a0 The PTAB affirmed emphasizing that appellant had not cited to a definition of \u2018a body adapted to be held by the human hand\u2019 or \u2018thumb switch\u2019 in the Specification that would preclude the Examiner\u2019s broader reading.<\/p>\n
The Federal circuit found that the intrinsic record fully determines the proper construction, so its review was de novo.\u00a0Noting that in reexamination the Board must give the terms their broadest reasonable construction, this\u00a0construction cannot be divorced from the specification and the record evidence.<\/p>\n
The Federal Circuit said that the phrase \u201cadapted to\u201d generally means \u201cmade to,\u201d \u201cdesigned to,\u201d or \u201cconfigured to,\u201d though it can also be used more broadly to mean \u201ccapable of\u201d or \u201csuitable for.\u201d\u00a0 The Federal Circuit found that\u00a0\u201cadapted to,\u201d as used in the \u2019614 claims and specification, has the narrower meaning —\u00a0that the claimed remote control device is made or designed to be held in the human hand and the thumb switch is made or designed for activation by a human thumb.<\/p>\n
The Federal Circuit found support for this in the written description, including an express distinction between the claimed device and the deskbound devices in the applied prior art.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit said: “The broadest reasonable\u00a0interpretation of a claim term cannot be so broad as to include a configuration expressly disclaimed in the specification.” Based upon the language of the specification, the Federal Circuit rejected the Board\u2019s unreasonably broad construction and construe \u201cadapted to be held by the human hand\u201d to mean \u201cdesigned or made to be held by the human hand,\u201d which it said excluded the desk-bound mouse of the prior art.<\/p>\n
Similarly the Federal Circuit rejected the\u00a0Board\u2019s overly broad construction of \u201cthumb switch being adapted for activation by the human thumb,\u201d noting that the construction ignores the\u00a0term \u201cthumb\u201d in \u201cthumb switch., or in light of the specification.\u00a0 The Federal Circuit reminded that the proper BRI construction is not just the broadest construction, but rather the broadest reasonable construction in light of the specification<\/em>.\u00a0 A construction that is unreasonably broad and which does not reasonably reflect the plain language and disclosure will not pass muster.<\/p>\n The Federal Circuit said that the\u00a0Board\u2019s broad construction of \u201cthumb switch being adapted for activation by a human thumb\u201d as being merely capable of activation by a human thumb is unreasonable in view of the specification\u2019s clear teaching that the patentee intended a narrower meaning.<\/p>\n Because the Board\u2019s anticipation rejection was based on erroneous claim constructions and the rejection is not supported under the proper constructions, the finding of anticipate was reversed.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \n \n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In In re Man Machine Interface Tech. LLC, [2015-1562] (April 19, 2016),\u00a0the Federal Circuit\u00a0affirmed-in-part, reversed-in-part, vacated-in-part, and remanded the PTAB’s affirmance of the rejection of claims of U.S. Patent No. 6,069,614 in ex parte reexamination. The patent is directed to … Continue reading