Extract
IP Update - July 2010 - Part 2.
Patents / Claim Construction
Erroneous Claim Construction Sends Case Back Sans Invalidity Counterclaims Mark R. Anderson Reversing a district court's grant of summary judgment, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Judge Rader's first opinion as chief judge, held that two of three contested claim limitations were erroneously construed and that invalidity counterclaims had been waived. Silicon Graphics, Inc. v. ATI Techs., Inc., Case Nos. 08-1334, -1353 (Fed. Cir., June 4, 2010) (Rader, C.J.). Silicon Graphics brought a patent infringement action against ATI tied to a computer graphics system that produces three-dimensional images and includes a rasterization process that utilizes a floating point format. The district court granted summary judgment of non-infringement for ATI, ruling that the claim construction precluded infringement. The court also held a jury trial on the patent's validity and the jury concluded that certain claims were not proved to be invalid. The Federal Circuit began its review with the claim construction of three contested claim limitations. The Court found that the district court had misconstrued two of the three terms and had improperly imported limitations into the claims from embodiments in the specification in contradiction of Philips. The Court found that the specification did not indicate the patentee's intent to make the embodiments coextensive with the claims, but only included a specific example as an optimal format. Hence, the district court committed a reversible error with its construction of the claims. The Federal Circuit also ruled that ATI had waived its invalidity counterclaims on any patent claims ATI did not litigate through trial. After the district court issued its summary judgment ruling, Silicon Graphics...See the full content of this document
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