Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-casd-3_17-cv-00632/USCOURTS-casd-3_17-cv-00632-5/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 28:1338pt Patent Infringement

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17-CV-632-CAB-(MDD)

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UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

IPS GROUP, INC.,

Plaintiff,

v.

CIVICSMART, INC., DUNCAN 

SOLUTIONS, INC. and DUNCAN 

PARKING TECHNOLOGIES, INC.,

Defendants.

Case No.: 17-CV-632-CAB-(MDD)

ORDER ON MOTION

TO CLARIFY CERTAIN

CLAIM CONSTRUCTIONS

[Doc. No. 142]

On December 18, 2018 the Court issued its claim construction order in this matter. 

[Doc. No. 130.] Plaintiff IPS Group, Inc. (“IPS”) now brings this motion requesting 

clarification of certain of the constructions issued by the Court. [Doc. No. 142.] 

Defendants CivicSmart, Inc., Duncan Solutions, Inc. and Duncan Parking Technologies 

(collectively “CivicSmart”) generally opposed the motion as IPS’s attempt to simply 

reargue its claim construction positions to the Court. [Doc. No. 143.]

“When parties present a fundamental dispute regarding the scope of a claim term, it 

is the court’s duty to resolve it.” GPNE Corp. v. Apple Inc., 830 F.3d 1365, 1372 (Fed. 

Cir. 2016). The construction or clarification of constructions, however “could proceed ad 

infinitum, as every word – whether claim term itself or the words a court uses to construe 

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a claim term – is susceptible to further definition, elucidation, and explanation. Id., at 1373 

(citing Eon Corp. IP Holdings, v. Silver Spring Networks, 815 F.3d 1314, 1318 (Fed. Cir. 

2016)). IPS contends that the Court’s constructions created ambiguity as to the scope of 

the claims and therefore requests further elucidation as to what is meant. Having reviewed 

the submissions of the parties, the Court “clarifies” its constructions as follows. 

1. The ’832 Patent Claim Terms

In this case the parties sought construction of certain terms in U.S. Patent No. 

8,513,832 for a “Power Supply Unit.” Claim 1 of the ‘832 patent enumerates component 

parts of the power supply unit including a main battery, a back-up battery, a control unit 

and a wireless communications device, which according to the claim are all enclosed in a 

housing. [Doc. No. 108-3, Col. 3:45-60.] The parties agreed, and the Court construed 

“housing” as a “shell or casing.”

1

 The Court further construed “encloses” as “surrounds or 

contains.” [Doc. No. 130, at 2.] Claim 1 further requires that the power supply’s housing

containing specific component parts of the power supply unit be “received within the

parking meter,” [Doc. No. 108-3, Col. 3:61-62], which the Court construed as “contained 

inside the parking meter device.” [Doc. No. 130, at 3.] The Court now amends this 

construction to contained substantially inside of the parking meter.

Claim 17 is for a parking meter comprising a parking meter housing, a solar panel, 

and a power supply unit including a main battery, a back-up battery, a control unit and a 

wireless communications device enclosed in a housing that “is received in the parking 

meter housing.” [Doc. No. 108-3, Col. 4:55-5:12.] For clarification, the Court now 

 

1 The text of the specification offers no description of the size, shape or material for the claimed housing 

for the power supply unit 10, or the claimed housing for the parking meter 50. Figure 3 depicts an example 

of a structure that encloses the components of the power supply unit. Figures 1 and 2 depict an example 

of a structure that encloses the components, including the independent power supply unit, of the parking 

meter 50. These figures provide support for the Court’s construction of housing as a “shell or casing.”

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construes “received in the parking meter housing” as to contained substantially inside 

the housing of the parking meter.

Both Claim 1 and Claim 17 require that specific components of the power supply 

unit be enclosed in a housing and received within the parking meter, or the housing of the 

parking meter. The patent discloses the power supply unit as self-contained in a housing 

separate and apart, or independent of, the other parts of the parking meter. [See id., Figs. 

1, 2 and 3.] The power supply unit is identified as distinct from other components of the 

parking meter, such as the coin validation unit, a timer, a display and solar panels that are 

not part of the power supply unit.2[Id., Col. 2:56-63, Figs. 1, 2, and 3.] The Court therefore 

construed the power supply unit’s limitation of a “housing that encloses” as an 

independent shell or case that surrounds or contains the enumerated component parts

of the power supply unit. 

Although the parties did not seek a construction of the term “parking meter,” it was 

discussed at the claim construction hearing. It now appears from the parties’ briefing that 

the meaning of “parking meter” in the context of this patent is the cause of conflict. To the 

extent the following differs from the discussion at the claim construction hearing, this 

written order prevails.

The ‘832 patent generally addresses a power supply unit for supplying power to a 

device. [Id., Col. 1:16-17.] The patent identifies such a device as a single bay parking 

meter. [Id., Col. 1:10-12.] “This invention extends to include a device, in particular a 

single bay stand alone parking meter 50, having the power supply unit 10.” [Id., Col. 2:47-

54, Figs. 1 and 2.] IPS amended Claim 1 during prosecution from “a power supply unit 

for providing power to a device” to “a power supply unit for providing power to a parking 

meter.” [Doc. No. 109-6.] Although the patent states that the application of the invention 

 

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“A coin validation unit 45 of the parking meter 50 is not a part of the present invention, but is mentioned 

for completeness, since the validation unit 45, and other components, such as a timer and a display (not 

shown) are powered by the power supply unit 10, being connected thereto via the load terminals 19.” 

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is not limited to parking meters, and the original claim language was drawn to claim a 

generic “device” application, [Doc. No. 108-3, Col. 3:39-43, Doc. No. 109-6], to overcome 

prior art rejections, IPS amended Claim 1 to narrow it from any device to the single bay 

parking meter disclosed. Claim 17 claims a parking meter with the power supply unit. 

[Doc. No. 108-3, Col. 4:55-59.] 

IPS seeks clarification that “parking meter” claimed in the patent is a single bay 

parking meter, and not just the parking meter mechanism for such a meter depicted in the 

patent’s drawings. Figures 1 and 2 are “views” of part of the “parking meter body” (i.e., 

the meter’s mechanism) illustrating an example of how the power supply unit

(independently housed) may be received within the housing of the parking meter (i.e., 

within the housing of the mechanism of the parking meter). [Id., Col. 2:6-10.] This 

embodiment is an example of how a power supply unit may be received but does not limit 

the patent claim to this configuration. 

In the term “parking meter” is construed as it is defined in the patent, a single bay 

parking meter. 

2. The ‘403 Patent Claim Terms

The parties also sought construction of certain terms in U.S. Patent No. 8,749,403

and U.S. Patent No. 9,424,691 for “Parking Meter Communications for Remote Payment 

with Updated Display.” Further “clarification” is now sought regarding the construction 

of the method step of claim 9 of the ‘403 patent and method step 11 of the ‘691 patent: 

activating the communication circuitry [the deactivated portion of the 

communication circuitry in step c] and initiating a communication session with the 

management system at a predetermined time prior to the expiration of the parking 

session set time

[Doc. No. 108-5, Col. 20:55-58; Doc. No. 108-6, Col. 21:4-7.]

The Court found this claim phrase unambiguous and declined any further 

construction at the initial claim construction hearing. [Doc. No. 130, at 7.]

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These method claims require the setting of a time for a parking session and the 

initiation of a countdown of that set time toward zero, and then the deactivation of at least 

a portion of the communication circuitry. [Doc. No. 108-5, at Col. 20:50-54; Doc. No. 

108-6, at Col. 20:66-Col. 21:3.] At a predetermined time before the set parking session 

expires, the system activates and communicates information to determine if additional time 

should be added the parking session. [Id., at Col. 20:55-61; Id., Col. 21:4-10.] “A” is 

commonly construed to mean one or more, Baldwin Graphic Sys, Inc., v. Siebert, 512 F.3d 

1338, 1342-43 (Fed. Cir. 2008), and the Court finds no reason to deviate from the general 

rule in this instance. Therefore, this activation and communication step may happen at one 

or more predetermined times before the expiration of the session set time. No further 

“clarification” or “elucidation” is warranted for these steps. 

It is SO ORDERED.

Dated: March 29, 2019

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