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Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 

---

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit

______________________

DDR HOLDINGS, LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

PRICELINE.COM LLC, BOOKING.COM B.V.,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________

2023-1176, 2023-1177

______________________

Appeals from the United States District Court for the 

District of Delaware in Nos. 1:17-cv-00498-CFC-JLH, 1:17-

cv-00499-CFC, Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly.

______________________

Decided: December 9, 2024

______________________

IAN B. CROSBY, Susman Godfrey LLP, Seattle, WA, 

argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by SHAWN 

DANIEL BLACKBURN, MENG XI, Houston, TX; LOUIS JAMES 

HOFFMAN, Hoffman Patent Firm, Scottsdale, AZ. 

 LAUREN J. DREYER, Baker Botts LLP, Washington, DC, 

argued for defendants-appellees. Also represented by 

MARGARET MCINERNEY WELSH, New York, NY; JEREMY 

TAYLOR, San Francisco, CA; FRANCIS DIGIOVANNI, Faegre 

Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP, Wilmington, DE. 

 ______________________

Case: 23-1176 Document: 42 Page: 1 Filed: 12/09/2024
2 DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC

Before CHEN, MAYER, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges.

CHEN, Circuit Judge.

DDR Holdings, LLC (DDR) appeals a final judgment of

the United States District Court for the District of 

Delaware of non-infringement of U.S. Patent No. 7,818,399 

(’399 patent) for Priceline.com LLC and Booking.com B.V. 

(collectively, Priceline.com or Appellees). DDR alleges that 

the district court erred in construing the claim term 

“merchants” to be limited to purveyors of goods alone, 

rather than purveyors of goods and services. DDR also 

alleges that the district court erred in construing the 

related claim term “commerce object” to include goods, but 

not services. For the reasons below, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

A. The ’399 Patent

As this court has previously summarized, the ’399 

patent relates to generating a composite web page that 

combines certain visual elements of a “host” website with 

content from a third-party “merchant.” DDR Holdings, 

LLC v. Hotels.com, L.P., 773 F.3d 1245, 1248 (Fed. Cir. 

2014). The e-commerce system disclosed in the ’399 patent 

involves “three main parties” aside from the end consumer: 

merchants, hosts, and outsource providers. ’399 patent col. 

22 ll. 9–12. “Merchants are the producers, distributors, or 

resellers of the goods to be sold through the outsource 

provider.” Id. col. 22 ll. 17–19. “A Host is the operator of a 

website that engages in Internet commerce by 

incorporating one or more link[s] to the e-commerce 

outsource provider into its web content.” Id. col. 22 ll. 45–

47. Finally, the outsource provider is an intermediary 

between the host and merchant that “[c]reate[s], 

maintain[s], and update[s] the ‘look & feel capture’ process 

through which consumers are able to shop in a Merchantcontrolled storefront within the design and navigational 

context of the Host website, preserving the ownership of 

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DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC 3

the visit experience by the Host.” Id. col. 22 l. 60 – col. 23 

l. 7. Through the outsource provider, the disclosed system 

enables host websites to retain visitor traffic and control 

the customer experience while displaying information on 

products from third-party merchants. See id. col. 2 ll. 57–

67.

Claim 1 is representative and recites:

1. A method of an outsource provider serving web 

pages offering commercial opportunities, the 

method comprising: 

(a) automatically at a server of the outsource 

provider, in response to activation, by a web 

browser of a computer user, of a link displayed by 

one of a plurality of first web pages, recognizing as 

the source page the one of the first web pages on 

which the link has been activated; 

(i) wherein each of the first web pages belongs 

to one of a plurality of web page owners; 

(ii) wherein each of the first web pages displays 

at least one active link associated with a 

commerce object associated with a buying 

opportunity of a selected one of a plurality of 

merchants; and 

(iii) wherein the selected merchant, the 

outsource provider, and the owner of the first 

web page are each third parties with respect to 

one other; 

(b) automatically retrieving from a storage coupled 

to the server pre-stored data associated with the 

source page; and then 

(c) automatically with the server computergenerating and transmitting to the web browser a 

second web page that includes: 

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4 DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC

(i) information associated with the commerce 

object associated with the link that has been 

activated, and 

(ii) a plurality of visually perceptible elements 

derived from the retrieved pre-stored data and 

visually corresponding to the source page.

Id. at claim 1 (emphases added).

B. Procedural History

DDR sued Priceline.com in 2017 for infringement of 

four patents, including the ’399 patent. Priceline.com

petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) for 

inter partes review (IPR) of all four asserted patents. The 

parties stipulated to stay the district court proceedings 

pending resolution of the IPRs. The Board found all 

challenged claims of three of the asserted patents to be 

unpatentable. However, the Board found that the 

challenged claims of the ’399 patent were not shown to be

unpatentable. Although its patentability analysis did not 

turn on the meaning of “merchants,” the Board applied the 

“broadest reasonable interpretation” standard to construe

“merchants” as “producers, distributors, or resellers of the 

goods or services to be sold.” J.A. 707–08, 736; J.A. 748–49

(emphasis added). 

Following the IPR decisions, the district court lifted the 

stay and proceeded with claim construction for the ’399 

patent. As relevant to this appeal, the parties disputed the 

constructions of the claim terms “merchants” and 

“commerce object.” DDR proposed that “merchants” be 

construed as “producers, distributors, or resellers of the 

goods or services to be sold.” J.A. 1288 (emphasis added). 

Priceline.com proposed that “merchants” be construed as 

“producers, distributors, or resellers of the goods to be sold 

through the outsource provider.” Id. (emphasis added). 

The district court construed “merchants” as “producers, 

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DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC 5

distributors, or resellers of the goods to be sold.” J.A. 9 

(emphasis added). 

Additionally, DDR proposed that “commerce object” be 

construed as “a product (goods or services), a product 

category, a catalog, or an indication that [a] product (goods 

or services), product category, or catalog should be chosen 

dynamically.” J.A. 1290. Priceline.com proposed that 

“commerce object” be construed as “a product, a product 

category, a catalog, or an indication that a product, product 

category, or catalog should be chosen dynamically.” Id. 

Noting that the word “products” is not a claim term, the 

district court found “as a matter of fact that the [’399 

patent’s] written description treats ‘goods’ and ‘product’ 

interchangeably, and it distinguishe[s] them [from] 

‘services.’” J.A. 1357 l. 21 – 1358 l. 11. The district court 

then adopted Priceline.com’s proposed construction, 

effectively construing “commerce object” to exclude 

“services.” J.A. 9.

Following the court’s claim construction order, the 

parties stipulated to non-infringement, “agree[ing] that the 

Accused Instrumentalities do not infringe the asserted 

claims of the ’399 Patent under the Court’s claim 

constructions and that the Court’s construction of either 

the term ‘merchants’ or the term ‘commerce object’ is casedispositive in Defendants’ favor on the issue of 

infringement.” J.A. 5. The court entered final judgment, 

from which DDR appeals. We have jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

DISCUSSION

I.

“We review claim construction based on intrinsic 

evidence de novo and review any findings of fact regarding 

extrinsic evidence for clear error.” SpeedTrack, Inc. v. 

Amazon.com, 998 F.3d 1373, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2021). “Claim 

terms are generally given their plain and ordinary 

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6 DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC

meanings to one of skill in the art when read in the context 

of the specification and prosecution history.” Golden 

Bridge Tech., Inc. v. Apple Inc., 758 F.3d 1362, 1365 

(Fed. Cir. 2014) (citing Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 

1303, 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc)). “There are only two 

exceptions to this general rule: 1) when a patentee sets out 

a definition and acts as his own lexicographer, or 2) when 

the patentee disavows the full scope of a claim term either 

in the specification or during prosecution.” Id. (quoting 

Thorner v. Sony Comput. Ent. Am. LLC, 669 F.3d 1362, 

1365 (Fed. Cir. 2012)).

II.

We turn first to the construction of “merchants.” The 

parties’ dispute over this term hinges on the variance in 

disclosures made between the ’399 patent’s written 

description and the provisional application1 to which the 

patent claims priority. 

The provisional application, which appears to be a 

marketing document for a company called Nexchange,

describes “an alternative approach” to e-commerce that 

“lets merchants take advantage of the Internet marketing 

competency of third-party website operators.” J.A. 868. 

The provisional application includes a section entitled 

“Products and Services,” under which it states: “There are 

three main parties in every Nexchange relationship, 

excluding the end consumer. These parties include 

Nexchange Merchants, Nexchange Hosts, and Nexchange.” 

Id. at 870. The provisional application continues, 

“Nexchange Merchants are the producers of the goods to be 

sold through Nexchange.” Id. (emphasis added). Under a 

separate section entitled “Value Propositions,” the 

provisional application provides: “Merchants, defined as 

producers, manufacturers, and select distributors of 

1 U.S. Provisional Patent App. No. 60/100,697.

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DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC 7

products or services, are strongly attracted to the sales 

potential of the Internet.” Id. at 875–76 (emphasis added). 

The provisional application thus discusses merchants as 

producers of “goods” in one instance, and “products or 

services” in another.

The specification of the ’399 patent provides certain 

parallel disclosures. The ’399 patent discloses: “There are 

three main parties in the outsourced e-commerce 

relationship, excluding the end consumer. These parties 

include Merchants, Hosts, and the e-commerce outsource 

provider.” ’399 patent col. 22 ll. 9–12. The patent, under 

the heading “Merchants,” further provides: “Merchants 

are the producers, distributors, or resellers of the goods to 

be sold through the outsource provider.” Id. col. 22 ll. 15–

18 (emphasis added). Notably missing from the patent’s 

specification, however, is any mention of services in relation 

to merchants. There is no disclosure in the specification 

analogous to the provisional application’s disclosure that 

“[m]erchants [are] defined as producers, manufacturers, 

and select distributors of products or services.”

During the claim construction hearing, the district 

court began by looking at the claim language and noting 

there is “no reference to services.” J.A. 1418 ll. 24–25. The 

district court next looked at the written description and 

determined it contains “no references to a merchant 

providing a service”; “[i]nstead, merchants are always 

discussed with respect to products or goods.” Id. at 1418 l. 

25 – 1419 l. 3. In discussing the sentence in the provisional 

application that “merchants” are “defined as producers, 

manufacturers, and select distributors of products or 

services,” J.A. 876, the district court noted that the 

“deletion from the written description [of the ’399 patent]

of a term that was in the provisional 

application . . . . contributes to an understanding of what 

the scope and meaning of the final application, the final 

written description reflects.” J.A. 1420 l. 17 – 1421 l. 15. 

The district court subsequently construed “merchants” as 

Case: 23-1176 Document: 42 Page: 7 Filed: 12/09/2024
8 DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC

“producers, distributors, or resellers of the goods to be 

sold.” J.A. 9.

DDR argues on appeal that it acted as its own 

lexicographer by providing, in the provisional application, 

an “explicit definition” of “merchants” to include “both 

goods and services,” as well as making this definition an 

“explicit part” of the ’399 patent specification by 

incorporating the provisional application by reference. 

Appellant’s Br. 11–12 (internal quotation marks omitted). 

According to DDR, the ’399 patent specification never 

disclaimed or redefined the provisional application’s 

definition because the relevant sentence in the 

specification—“Merchants are the producers, distributors, 

or resellers of the goods to be sold through the outsource 

provider”—is not definitional, as it does not use the phrase 

“defined as” or set off the term “merchants” by quotation 

marks. Id. at 13–16. DDR does not offer an explanation as 

to why, compared to the provisional application, the ’399 

patent omitted the term “services” from its specification.

Like the district court, we find DDR’s arguments 

unpersuasive. When construing claims, this court looks to 

how a skilled artisan would read the claim term “in the 

context of the entire patent,” including the specification

and prosecution history. Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1313. Here, 

the deletion made by the patent drafter between the 

provisional application and the patent specification is 

highly significant. Although DDR’s provisional application 

discussed merchants as both purveyors of “goods” and 

purveyors of “products or services,” DDR elected in its 

patent specification to delete the reference to “products or 

services” and instead discuss merchants as purveyors of 

“goods” alone. A skilled artisan would understand this 

progression between the provisional application and the 

patent specification to indicate an evolution of the

applicant’s intended meaning of the claim term, which is 

further reinforced by the specification’s clear statement 

that “[m]erchants are the producers, distributors, or

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DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC 9

resellers of the goods to be sold through the outsource 

provider,” ’399 patent col. 22 ll. 17–18. In light of the 

patentee’s deletion of any reference to merchants providing 

“services” in the final specification, we agree with the 

district court’s construction that “merchants” are 

purveyors of goods, not services.

This court performed a similar analysis in MPHJ 

Technology Invs., LLC v. Ricoh Americas Corp., 847 F.3d 

1363 (Fed. Cir. 2017). In MPHJ, an appeal from an IPR 

proceeding before the Board, the patent owner argued that 

the claim term “seamless” required “a one-step operation 

without human intervention.” Id. at 1366. For support, 

the patent owner relied on the provisional application (to 

which the patent-at-issue claimed priority), which included 

two statements on “‘one step’ operation using a single 

button.” Id. at 1368. The petitioner countered that those

statements in the provisional application were omitted 

from the final application, which instead described singlestep operation as “optional.” Id. at 1368–69. In response, 

the patent owner argued that “these omitted sections were 

not explicitly disclaimed, and therefore . . . they are part of 

the prosecution history and are properly relied on to 

explain and limit the claims, even if the passages do not 

appear in the issued patent.” Id. at 1368.

The MPHJ court determined that, in light of the 

“deletion from the . . . [p]rovisional application,” a skilled 

artisan “would deem the removal of these limiting clauses 

to be significant.” Id. at 1369. Considering both “the 

change from the . . . [p]rovisional to the final patent,” and 

the statements in the final patent that single-step 

operation was “optional,” the court concluded that a 

“person skilled in this field would reasonably conclude that 

the inventor intended that single-step operation would be 

optional, not obligatory.” Id. 

Here, too, we determine that a skilled artisan would 

deem significant the ’399 patent specification’s deletion of 

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10 DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC

the provisional application’s reference to merchants as 

purveyors of services. Reading the claim term “in the 

context of the entire patent,” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1313, 

including the deletion, a skilled artisan would have 

understood “merchants” to exclude services. Accordingly, 

we affirm the district court’s construction of “merchants” 

as “producers, distributors, or resellers of the goods to be 

sold.”

Our conclusion is not undermined by the fact that the 

’399 patent specification incorporates by reference the 

provisional application. See ’399 patent col. 1 ll. 13–15. 

DDR argues that no “deletion” took place because the ’399 

patent’s incorporation of the provisional application results 

in “one document,” in which neither the written description 

on the face of the patent nor the incorporated provisional 

application “supersedes or amends its counterpart.” 

Appellant’s Br. 9, 16–17. 

This court has explained, however, that when a host 

patent incorporates another patent by reference, “the 

disclosure of the host patent provides context to determine 

what impact, if any, a patent incorporated by reference will 

have on construction of the host patent claims.” Finjan 

LLC v. ESET, LLC, 51 F.4th 1377, 1382 (Fed. Cir. 2022). 

In Finjan, this court explained that “[t]he use of a 

restrictive term in an earlier application does not reinstate 

that term in a later patent that purposely deletes the term, 

even if the earlier patent is incorporated by reference.” Id.

at 1383 (citing Modine Mfg. Co. v. U.S. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 

75 F.3d 1545, 1553 (Fed. Cir. 1996)). The same principle 

holds here. A skilled artisan reading the incorporated 

provisional application in the context of the ’399 patent 

specification would consider that “merchants” providing 

“services” was included in the provisional application, yet 

deleted by the patent drafter from the final specification. 

That deletion, which “was conspicuous and unambiguous,” 

Modine, 75 F.3d at 1552, would in turn indicate to a skilled 

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DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC 11

artisan that the patentee intended “merchants” to exclude 

services.

We next address DDR’s argument, made in its reply 

brief, that Priceline.com is “collaterally estopped from even 

suggesting that the nonprovisional contains a definition” 

because “Appellees already litigated—and lost—that 

precise issue before the [Board].” Appellant’s Reply Br. 24. 

DDR refers to the Board’s determination that the 

specification’s statement—that “[m]erchants are the 

producers, distributors, or resellers of the goods to be sold 

through the outsource provider”—is not definitional 

“because the statement does not sufficiently evidence an 

intention by the patent [a]pplicant to depart from the

ordinary meaning of the term.” J.A. 748. After making 

that determination, the Board adopted the patent owner’s

(i.e., DDR’s) definition of merchants as “producers, 

distributors, or resellers of the goods or services to be sold,”

reasoning that such definition was “broader and not 

unreasonable.” J.A. 749 (citation omitted). 

As an initial matter, DDR forfeited this argument both 

on appeal and in the underlying district court proceedings. 

DDR did not raise its collateral estoppel argument in its 

opening brief, and “[o]ur law is well established that 

arguments not raised in the opening brief are [forfeited].” 

SmithKline Beecham Corp. v. Apotex Corp., 439 F.3d 1312, 

1319 (Fed. Cir. 2006).2 And in the underlying claim 

construction proceeding, the district court concluded that 

DDR had forfeited its collateral estoppel arguments by

2 The SmithKline court used the term “waiver,” but 

for consistency we use “forfeiture” here. See In re Google 

Tech. Holdings LLC, 980 F.3d 858, 862 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (“By 

and large, in reviewing this court’s precedent, it is evident 

that the court mainly uses the term ‘waiver’ when applying 

the doctrine of ‘forfeiture.’”).

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12 DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC

failing to mention estoppel or preclusion in its briefs. 

J.A. 1392 ll. 13–16, 1394 ll. 12–18. 

Even ignoring DDR’s forfeiture, we note that neither 

this court nor the district court—both of which employ a 

Phillips standard for claim construction—is bound by the 

Board’s constructions under the broadest reasonable 

interpretation standard. 3 Compare Phillips, 415 F.3d at 

1312–13, with Cuozzo Speed Techs. v. Com. for Intell. Prop.,

579 U.S. 261, 276 (2016). This court has held that “the 

issue preclusion doctrine can apply in this court to the 

Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s decision in an IPR once it 

becomes final.” Papst Licensing GMBH & Co. KG v. 

Samsung Elecs. Am., Inc., 924 F.3d 1243, 1250–51 

(Fed. Cir. 2019). But that principle is inapplicable here, 

where we employ a different claim construction standard

than that used by the Board. See ParkerVision, Inc. v. 

Qualcomm Inc., 116 F.4th 1345, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2024) (“The 

application of collateral estoppel is ‘subject to certain wellknown exceptions’ . . . [including] where ‘the second action 

involves application of a different legal standard, even 

though the factual setting of both suits may be the same.’”

(quoting B & B Hardware, Inc. v. Hargis Indus., Inc., 575 

U.S. 138, 148, 154 (2015))). “Because the Board applies the 

broadest reasonable construction of the claims while the 

district courts apply a different standard of claim 

construction as explored in Phillips,” a party is not 

collaterally estopped in district court proceedings by the 

3 In late 2018, the Board announced a final rule 

adopting the Phillips claim construction standard in IPR 

petitions filed on or after November 13, 2018. See, e.g., 

Personalized Media Commc’ns, LLC v. Apple Inc., 952 F.3d 

1336, 1340 n.2 (Fed. Cir. 2020). Because the IPR at issue 

here was filed before that date, the Board’s claim 

construction inquiry was governed by the broadest 

reasonable interpretation standard.

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DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC 13

Board’s constructions during IPR. SkyHawke Techs., LLC 

v. Deca Int’l Corp., 828 F.3d 1373, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2016).

In the related IPR proceedings, the Board determined,

under the broadest reasonable interpretation standard,

that the ’399 patent specification’s statement that 

“[m]erchants are the producers, distributors, or resellers of 

the goods to be sold through the outsource provider” is not 

definitional. J.A. 748. However, the Board had leeway 

before determining that a narrowing statement in the 

specification provides a definition for a claim term. That is 

because the Board’s standard asks for the broadest

construction that is still reasonable, which weighs against

adopting any narrower statement as definitional. A 

district court, on the other hand, could conclude under 

Phillips that a narrower statement, read in the context of 

the specification and prosecution history, would best be 

understood by a skilled artisan as definitional. The Board 

itself recognized the distinctive nature of the broadest 

reasonable interpretation standard when it observed that 

its chosen interpretation for “merchants” “is broader and 

not unreasonable.” J.A. 749.4

Accordingly, although the Board found the statement 

at issue in the specification to not be definitional, we 

conclude under Phillips that it is, in light of the intrinsic 

evidence. We thus affirm the district court’s construction 

of “merchants” as purveyors of goods, not services.

III.

Finally, we turn to the construction of “commerce 

object.” The district court “effectively construed” the claim 

term “commerce object” based on the same reasoning used 

to construe “merchants.” J.A. 1423 l. 25 – 1424 l. 18. On 

4 We note that the Board’s analysis did not consider 

the difference in disclosures between the provisional 

application and the final specification of the ’399 patent.

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14 DDR HOLDINGS, LLC v. PRICELINE.COM LLC

appeal, the parties agree that the construction of 

“commerce object” should adhere to the construction of 

“merchants.” Appellant’s Br. 25; Appellees’ Br. 32–34. 

Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s construction of 

“commerce object” as “a product, a product category, a 

catalog, or an indication that a product, product category, 

or catalog should be chosen dynamically.”

CONCLUSION

We have considered DDR’s remaining arguments and 

find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we 

affirm.

AFFIRMED

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