{"id":954,"date":"2016-05-31T16:04:40","date_gmt":"2016-05-31T20:04:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=954"},"modified":"2016-05-31T16:04:40","modified_gmt":"2016-05-31T20:04:40","slug":"canons-of-claim-construction-to-the-rescue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=954","title":{"rendered":"Canons of Claim Construction to the Rescue"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Ruckus Wireless, Inc. v. Innovative Wireless Solutions<\/em>, LLC, [2015-1425, 2015-1438] (May 31, 2016), the Federal Circuit\u00a0affirmed the district court’s claim construction and resulting judgment of non-infringement.<\/p>\n

At issue was whether U.S. Patent Nos.\u00a05,912,895, 6,327,264, and\u00a06,587,473 directed to\u00a0for providing\u00a0access to a local area network (LAN) from a relatively\u00a0distant computer, and more particularly whether “communications path” is these patents was limited to wired paths, or whether communications path also included wireless paths.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit first confirmed that the district court\u00a0relied only on intrinsic evidence to construe\u00a0the term \u201ccommunications path,\u201d and thus its review of that construction was de novo.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit found no intrinsic or extrinsic evidence to support IWS\u2019s
\nassumption that a person of ordinary skill at the time of\u00a0invention would have understood the plain and ordinary\u00a0meaning of \u201ccommunications path\u201d to include wireless\u00a0communications. \u00a0The Federal Circuit observed:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. The title of the\u00a0patents indicates that they are directed to \u201cCommunicating Information Packets Via Telephone Lines.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. The\u00a0specification describes \u201c[t]his invention\u201d as one \u201cparticularly
    \nconcerned\u201d with \u201ctwo wire lines such as telephone
    \nsubscriber lines.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Every embodiment\u00a0described in the specification utilizes a telephone
    \nwire, and when the specification clarifies that the full\u00a0breadth of the invention is not limited to the expressed\u00a0embodiments, it declares only that the patents may also
    \nreach any wired connection.<\/li>\n
  4. IWS did not present\u2014nor did the\u00a0district court consult\u2014any extrinsic evidence, such as\u00a0dictionaries, trade literature, expert testimony, or any\u00a0other evidence showing that \u201ccommunications path\u201d was a\u00a0term of art or otherwise understood to include wireless\u00a0communications at the time of invention.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    The Federal Circuit also found IWS’s claim differentiation arguments unpersuasive, because they did not necessarily broaden the independent claims to include wireless, as opposed to other forms of wired connections.<\/p>\n

    Finally, the Federal Circuit turned to the “canons” of claim construction, and in particular to the cannon that, “[i]f, after applying all other available tools of claim\u00a0construction, a claim is ambiguous, it should be construed\u00a0to preserve its validity.” \u00a0Applying this canon, the Federal Circuit noted that if the claims were not limited to wired communication paths, it would “would likely<\/em> render the claims\u00a0invalid for lack of written description.” \u00a0The Federal Circuit thus concluded that\u00a0canon favoring constructions\u00a0that preserve claim validity therefore counsels against\u00a0construing \u201ccommunications path\u201d to include wireless\u00a0communications.<\/p>\n

    The Federal Circuit thus affirmed the district court’s claim construction and its judgment of non-infringement.<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    In Ruckus Wireless, Inc. v. Innovative Wireless Solutions, LLC, [2015-1425, 2015-1438] (May 31, 2016), the Federal Circuit\u00a0affirmed the district court’s claim construction and resulting judgment of non-infringement. At issue was whether U.S. Patent Nos.\u00a05,912,895, 6,327,264, and\u00a06,587,473 directed to\u00a0for providing\u00a0access to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":955,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/954\/revisions\/955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}