No Credit

Patent Prospector:
Dealertrack sued Huber and
Finance Express, along with other auto
dealers, for infringing its network-based credit application processing
patents: 6,587,841
& 7,181,427.
Judge
Guilford in Central California inexcusably construed “network,” which
had been broadly disclosed, as “not including the internet.” Defendants
drove away with non-infringement. Other inanity ensued, only some of
which was corrected by the CAFC on appeal.
Dealertrack v. Huber et al (CAFC 2009-1566)
precedential; Judges Linn (author), Plager (dissent-in-part) and Dyk

Appellees Finance Express, John Doe Dealers, and RouteOne
(collectively, “Appellees”) filed four summary judgment motions1: (1)
non-infringement of all asserted claims of the ’841 Patent based on the
absence of a “com-munications medium,” as construed by the district
court, in the accused devices and based on several other proposed
claim constructions; (2) invalidity of claims 14, 16, and 17 of the
’841 Patent for indefiniteness under 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶¶ 2, 6 for
failure to disclose adequate structure corresponding to the purported
means-plus-function “tracking” limitation; (3) invalidity of all
asserted claims of the ’427 Patent for failure to claim patent-eligible
subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101; (4) invalid-ity of all asserted
claims of the ’427 Patent for failure to claim priority to the ’403
Patent.
The district court agreed with Appellees’ proposed claim
construction of the phrase “communications medium” in the ’841 Patent
as “a ‘network for transferring data,’ not including the internet.”
Claim Construction, at 19. Because “communications medium” was
a
limitation in all claims of the ’841 Patent, and because it was
undis-puted that the accused products transferred data only over the
Internet, the district court granted summary judgment of
non-infringement of all asserted claims of the ’841 Patent. The
district court denied summary judgment of invalidity for failure to
disclose adequate structure for the “tracking” limitation …

Published:
25.01.12
Category:
IP News