Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01853/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01853-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Apple, Inc.
Appellee
ClassCo, Inc.
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

CLASSCO, INC.,

Appellant

v.

APPLE, INC.,

Appellee

______________________ 

2015-1853

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. 95/002,109.

______________________ 

Decided: September 22, 2016

______________________ 

DAVID M. QUINLAN, David M. Quinlan, P.C., Princeton, NJ, argued for appellant.

BRIAN ROBERT MATSUI, Morrison & Foerster LLP, 

Washington, DC, argued for appellee. Also represented by 

DAVID LEE FEHRMAN, MEHRAN ARJOMAND, Los Angeles, 

CA. 

______________________ 

Before TARANTO, BRYSON, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.

STOLL, Circuit Judge.

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2 CLASSCO, INC. v. APPLE, INC. 

ClassCo, Inc. appeals from a decision of the Patent 

Trial and Appeal Board in inter partes reexamination 

No. 95/002,109 of ClassCo’s U.S. Patent No. 6,970,695. 

The Board affirmed an examiner’s rejection of claims 2–5, 

7, 9, 10, 14, 17, 18, 23, 26–30, and 34 as unpatentable 

under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We affirm. 

BACKGROUND

I.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued the ’695

patent on November 29, 2005. The patent discusses 

technology that identifies incoming telephone calls and 

alerts the called party to the caller’s identity. The specification explains that telephone companies had made 

identifying incoming calls possible through a subscriber 

service known as Caller ID. It describes previous Caller ID systems that visually displayed a caller’s name or 

number. The patent purportedly improves on these and 

other pre-existing systems by introducing a call-screening 

system that verbally announces a caller’s identity before 

the call is connected. 

In one embodiment, for example, the patented system 

works alongside a user’s preexisting “Call Waiting” service. ’695 patent col. 4 ll. 53–63. When a user is on the 

phone and another person calls, the system will play a 

tone and then verbally announce through the handset the 

caller’s identity, or as the claims refer to it, “identity 

information.” Because the system may be installed between the incoming telephone line and the user’s telephone, the purported invention does not require a special 

telephone, auxiliary display terminal, or speaker to let 

users screen calls. Rather, it works with ordinary phones, 

an attribute the specification describes as “[o]ne of the 

most important features of the invention.” ’695 patent, 

Abstract. 

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II. 

In an inter partes reexamination of ClassCo’s ’695 patent, the Board affirmed the examiner’s rejection of claims 

2–5, 7, 9, 10, 14, 17, 18, 23, 26–30, and 341 as being 

obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). The Board affirmed the 

examiner’s rejection of the claims as obvious over U.S. 

Patent No. 4,894,861 to Fujioka et al. in view of U.S. 

Patent No. 5,199,064 to Gulick et al. 

ClassCo identified claim 2 as representative of all 

claims except claim 14, which it argued separately. 

Claims 2 and 14 depend from claim 1, and all three claims 

are reproduced below: 

1. A caller announcement apparatus for a telephone system that provisions a telephone call between a caller telephone at a caller station and a 

called telephone at a called station, where the 

caller station is associated with an identity, where 

the telephone system provides signals to the 

called station that include caller identification 

signals representative of the identity associated 

with the caller station and voice signals representative of audio detected by an audio transducer 

of the caller telephone, and where the voice signals are processed by the called telephone to produce audio using an audio transducer at the called 

station, the caller announcement apparatus comprising:

a signal receiver at the called station 

operatively connected to the telephone 

system to receive signals therefrom, the 

 

1 ClassCo canceled claims 1, 11–13, 15, 16, 19–22, 

25, 31–33, 35, and 36 of the ’695 patent in an earlier ex 

parte reexamination, No. 90/011,679.

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signal receiver being operative to extract 

caller identification signals from the signals received from the telephone system 

and to provide caller identification data 

corresponding to the extracted caller identification signals;

a processing unit operatively connected to the signal receiver to receive caller 

identification data therefrom, the processing unit being operative to provide 

identity information associated with the 

caller identification data;

an audio announcing circuit operatively connected to the processing unit to receive identity information therefrom, the 

audio announcing circuit being operative 

to use the identity information to produce 

audio using the audio transducer at the 

called station.

2. The caller announcement apparatus of claim 1 

wherein the processing unit comprises memory 

storage for storing identity information associated 

with the caller identification data. 

14. The caller announcement apparatus of claim 1 

wherein the identity information is associated 

with plural items of caller identification data. 

’695 patent col. 9 ll. 9–42, col. 10 ll. 25–28 (emphases 

added). 

The Board found that Fujioka disclosed all but one of 

the elements of claim 2, including announcing a caller’s 

identity. The Board recognized that Fujioka did not, 

however, disclose using the same “audio transducer” (i.e., 

speaker) for announcing both a caller’s identity and 

telephone voice signals, as claim 2 requires. J.A. 5–6. 

The Board looked to Gulick for that teaching. Gulick 

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CLASSCO, INC. v. APPLE, INC. 5

generally discloses a hands-free telephone that integrates 

various phone features into a single device. ’064 patent 

col. 1 ll. 5–7. The Board explained that “Gulick discloses 

a speaker that produces audio derived from tonal ringing 

call-alerting and also from caller voice signals.” J.A. 6 

(internal quotation marks omitted). It found that, in light 

of Gulick, “one of ordinary skill in the art would have 

understood that a speaker in a telephone system may 

(and does) produce audio derived from multiple types of 

data in a telephone system, including tonal ringing callalerting and caller voice signals.” J.A. 6 (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, the Board held that the 

combination of Fujioka and Gulick rendered representative claim 2 and the claims that depend from it obvious. 

The Board explained that one of ordinary skill in the art 

would have been motivated to develop Fujioka’s singlespeaker embodiment based on Gulick using one speaker 

to convey different data in a telephone system. J.A. 6. 

The Board also held claim 14 obvious over Fujioka in 

view of Gulick. Claim 14 depends from claim 1 and 

further requires “the caller announcement apparatus of 

claim 1 wherein the identity information is associated 

with plural items of caller identification data.” ’695 

patent col. 10 ll. 25–27. The Board adopted the examiner’s construction of “identity information” as “something 

that identifies, such as a name that identifies a phone 

number as a particular person.” J.A. 1107; see J.A. 9 

(agreeing with the examiner). The Board found that the 

combination of Fujioka and Gulick disclosed this element, 

as Fujioka stored identity information in the form of the 

calling party’s name. J.A. 9. 

The Board also considered ClassCo’s evidence of objective indicia of nonobviousness, but concluded that the 

evidence merited no weight whatsoever in the obviousness 

inquiry. ClassCo had presented evidence of praise, longfelt need, and commercial success relating to its commercial products and licensing efforts. The Board found that 

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6 CLASSCO, INC. v. APPLE, INC. 

each piece of evidence had no nexus to the merits of the 

claimed invention. J.A. 9–15. The Board explained that 

no nexus existed because much of the evidence related to 

features disclosed in the prior art, such as Fujioka’s 

announcement of a caller’s identity. And to the extent 

that the evidence focused on features not in the prior art, 

the Board added, those features were unclaimed. Having 

found that none of ClassCo’s evidence of objective indicia 

merited weight, the Board affirmed the examiner’s rejections of claims 2–5, 7, 9, 10, 14, 17, 18, 23, 26–30, and 34 

as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103. ClassCo timely 

appealed. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1295(a)(4)(A).

DISCUSSION

“We review the Board’s ultimate obviousness determination de novo and underlying factual findings for 

substantial evidence.” In re Varma, 816 F.3d 1352, 1359 

(Fed. Cir. 2016).2 Substantial evidence “means such 

relevant evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as 

adequate to support a conclusion.” Consol. Edison Co. v. 

NLRB, 305 U.S. 197, 217 (1938).

I.

ClassCo agrees with the Board’s finding that Fujioka 

discloses all but one of the elements of claim 2. Appellant 

Br. 31. ClassCo nonetheless argues that the Board could 

not simply “combine” Fujioka and Gulick, because neither 

Fujioka nor Gulick discloses the claimed function of 

 

2 Given the effective filing date of the claims of the 

’047 application, the version of 35 U.S.C. § 103 that 

applies here is that in force preceding the changes made 

by the America Invents Act. See Leahy–Smith America

Invents Act, Pub. L. No. 112-29, § 3(n), 125 Stat. 284, 293 

(2011).

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“us[ing] the identity information to produce audio using 

the audio transducer at the called station.” In particular, 

ClassCo argues that the Board’s affirmance of the examiner’s rejection runs contrary to the Supreme Court’s use 

of the term “combination” in KSR International Co. v. 

Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). According to ClassCo, 

“[a] basic characteristic of a KSR combination is that it 

‘only unites old elements with no change in their respective functions.’” Appellant Br. 28 (quoting id. at 416). 

We find that those contentions do not show that the 

Board’s approach is inconsistent with KSR. While neither 

Fujioka nor Gulick taught a single speaker for announcing both voice signals and identity information, substantial evidence supports the Board’s finding that one of 

ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to 

modify Fujioka to use a single speaker given Gulick’s 

disclosure that a speaker in a telephone system can 

desirably produce audio derived from multiple types of 

data within a telephone system (e.g., voice signals or tonal 

ringing call-alerting). The examiner found the motivation 

when she stated that the modification would “advantageously provide a non-handset, external speaker output 

for the voice signal from the caller and thereby enable the 

called person to communicate with the caller in a handsfree (speakerphone) manner.” J.A. 1082. Fujioka itself 

notes the benefit of allowing the recipient to “judge the 

original party from an audible indication immediately 

upon receiving the incoming call,” ’861 patent col. 1 ll. 39–

41, and Gulick notes the hands-free benefit, ’064 patent

col. 1 ll. 49–50. Against that background, and focusing on 

ClassCo’s appeal arguments, the Board explained that 

modifying Fujioka in a way taught by Gulick “would have 

resulted in no more than the predictable result of the use 

of a speaker in the telephone system that produces audio 

derived from data in a telephone system, the data being 

any of voice signals, identity information, or tonal ringing 

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8 CLASSCO, INC. v. APPLE, INC. 

call-alerting, for example.” J.A. 6 (internal quotation 

marks omitted). 

Contrary to ClassCo’s argument, KSR does not require that a combination only unite old elements without 

changing their respective functions. KSR, 550 U.S. at

416. Instead, KSR teaches that “[a] person of ordinary 

skill is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton.” Id. at 421. And it explains that the ordinary 

artisan recognizes “that familiar items may have obvious 

uses beyond their primary purposes, and in many cases a 

person of ordinary skill will be able to fit the teachings of 

multiple patents together like pieces of a puzzle.” Id. at 

420. The rationale of KSR does not support ClassCo’s 

theory that a person of ordinary skill can only perform 

combinations of a puzzle element A with a perfectly 

fitting puzzle element B. To the contrary, KSR instructs 

that the obviousness inquiry requires a flexible approach. 

Id. at 415. Here, the Board faithfully applied this flexible 

approach to find that the combination of Fujioka and 

Gulick “would have resulted in no more than [a] predictable result.” J.A. 6. 

II.

ClassCo also argues that the Board wrongly “dismissed the patent owner’s objective evidence of nonobviousness on the grounds that there is insufficient nexus 

between the claimed invention and the objective evidence 

of nonobviousness.” Appellant Br. 16–17. 

We agree with ClassCo that the Board erred in dismissing some of its evidence of nonobviousness. Even 

though it was not dispositive evidence of nonobviousness, 

the Board should have given some weight and consideration to ClassCo’s evidence of praise and commercial 

success. As we have explained, “when secondary considerations are present, though they are not always dispositive, it is error not to consider them.” In re Huai-Hung 

Kao, 639 F.3d 1057, 1067 (Fed. Cir. 2011). Moreover, “[a]

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determination of whether a patent claim is invalid as 

obvious under § 103 requires consideration of all four 

Graham factors, and it is error to reach a conclusion of 

obviousness until all those factors are considered.” WBIP, 

LLC v. Kohler Co., No. 2015-1038, 2016 WL 3902668, at 

*5 (Fed. Cir. July 19, 2016). 

The Board correctly determined that much of 

ClassCo’s evidence of praise deserved no weight because it 

did not have a nexus to the merits of the claimed invention. “For objective evidence of secondary considerations to be accorded substantial weight, its proponent 

must establish a nexus between the evidence and the 

merits of the claimed invention.” Kao, 639 F.3d at 1068

(emphasis and internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting 

Wyers v. Master Lock Co., 616 F.3d 1231, 1246 (Fed. Cir.

2010)). A nexus may not exist where, for example, the 

merits of the claimed invention were “readily available in 

the prior art.” Richdel, Inc. v. Sunspool Corp., 714 F.2d 

1573, 1580 (Fed. Cir. 1983); see also Tokai Corp. v. Easton 

Enters., Inc., 632 F.3d 1358, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2011). Additionally, there is no nexus unless the evidence presented 

is “reasonably commensurate with the scope of the 

claims.” Rambus Inc. v. Rea, 731 F.3d 1248, 1257 (Fed. 

Cir. 2013) (quoting Kao, 639 F.3d at 1068). 

As the Board correctly explained, much of ClassCo’s 

evidence of praise focused on conventional features in the 

prior art. J.A. 11, 14. For example, ClassCo submitted 

news releases that praised its device’s “voice-capable 

caller ID unit,” J.A. 12, but, as the Board correctly explained, the prior art, including Fujioka, disclosed “storing identification data and producing a voice 

announcement (i.e. audio corresponding to identification 

data of a caller).” J.A. 11. The Board properly discounted 

this and other evidence relating to features that were in 

the prior art. But while the Board properly discounted 

some of ClassCo’s evidence, it improperly dismissed some

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10 CLASSCO, INC. v. APPLE, INC. 

evidence of praise related to features that were not available in the prior art. 

For example, ClassCo presented an article from Teleconnect Magazine that praised ClassCo’s product for 

enabling a user to pick up a ringing telephone and hear a 

caller’s identification on the handset speaker before the 

line connects. By using a single speaker for both announcing a caller’s identity and the telephone call, 

ClassCo’s product enabled users to use an ordinary handset to both screen calls and take them: 

On the left side of the device is a switch marked 

“handset.” When the switch is off, the device announces calls through its speaker, and lets you 

answer them directly — calls can be answered by 

lifting the handset of any attached phone. When 

the switch is on, the VACID [Voice Announce 

Caller ID] switches the phone out of the loop, so 

you can lift the handset without “answering the 

call.” It then announces over the inside line—you 

can answer by pressing Flash (or briefly bouncing 

the hook-switch), or just hang up. This feature 

really adds utility—it frees you from being tied to 

the immediate proximity of the box, and lets the 

device serve multiple extensions (dispersed 

through an apartment, for example) and wireless 

phones.

J.A. 1653 (Teleconnect Magazine, Who’s There!?? Speak 

Up!! October 1995, p. 40). ClassCo submitted several 

other articles describing benefits derived from the singlespeaker feature. E.g., J.A. 1825 (Computer Telephony, 

July 1996, page 114) (“lf [ClassCo’s product] is connected 

right as the phone line comes into your home, and all the 

phones are behind it, as soon as you pick up the phone it 

can play the name of the caller (assuming that it is one of 

the 20 in the list) before connecting the caller.”); J.A. 

1829–30 (The Dallas Morning News (the Archive), 

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Oct. 20, 1998) (“On a cordless phone, the call will be 

announced through the handset.”); see also Appellant 

Br. 20–23 (collecting articles). Neither party asserts that 

this single-speaker feature was readily available in the 

art, and the Board was wrong to dismiss it as such.

The Board also dismissed this evidence for a different 

reason: it found that the claims were not commensurate 

in scope with the praised features. We disagree. Both 

parties agree that the single-speaker embodiment falls 

within the scope of representative claims 2 and 14. 

Moreover, Apple admits that dependent claim 5 expressly 

recites the embodiment touted in the articles: picking up 

a telephone handset without answering a call so that the 

user can first hear a caller’s identification. Appellee Br. 

55–56; see also ’695 patent col. 9 ll. 52–56. (“The caller 

announcement apparatus of claim 1 further comprising: 

an isolation circuit operative to prevent the telephone 

system from completing the telephone call from the caller 

telephone to the called telephone while the audio announcement circuit is producing audio using the audio 

transducer at the called station.”). Because claim 5 

depends from claim 1, it is reasonable to infer that claim 1 

includes the scope of claim 5. See Intamin Ltd. v. Magnetar Techs., Corp., 483 F.3d 1328, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2007)

(“An independent claim impliedly embraces more subject 

matter than its narrower dependent claim.”). 

While claims 2 and 14, which depend from claim 1, also encompass the praised embodiment, the Board found 

the evidence not commensurate in scope with these claims 

on the ground that they are too broad, encompassing 

other embodiments. But “we do not require a patentee to 

produce objective evidence of nonobviousness for every 

potential embodiment of the claim.” Rambus, 731 F.3d at 

1257. Rather, “we have consistently held that a patent 

applicant ‘need not sell every conceivable embodiment of 

the claims in order to rely upon evidence of [objective 

indicia of nonobviousness].’” In re Glatt Air Techniques, 

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12 CLASSCO, INC. v. APPLE, INC. 

Inc., 630 F.3d 1026, 1030 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (quoting In re 

DBC, 545 F.3d 1373, 1384 (Fed. Cir. 2008)). As such, the 

Board should have afforded ClassCo’s evidence some

weight, taking into account the degree of the connection 

between the features presented in evidence and the 

elements recited in the claims. There is no hard-and-fast

rule for this calculus, as “[q]uestions of nexus are highly 

fact-dependent and, as such are not resolvable by appellate-created categorical rules and hierarchies as to the 

relative weight or significance of proffered evidence.” 

WBIP, 2016 WL 3902668, at *8. Here, because claims 2 

and 14 are considerably broader than the particular 

features praised in the articles, it would be reasonable for 

the Board to assign this evidence little weight.3 But, 

contrary to the finding of the Board, the evidence is due at 

least some weight. 

We also view the Board’s analysis of ClassCo’s evidence of commercial success as flawed. ClassCo presented testimony that its “sales volumes and growth of market 

share . . . [were] strong evidence of the commercial success of ClassCo products.” J.A. 1821. According to testimony presented by ClassCo, the market for ClassCo’s 

products consisted of “all Caller ID devices,” including 

those that simply displayed Caller ID. J.A. 1820–21. 

“ClassCo’s share of that [$82,000,000] market was 0.8%.” 

J.A. 1821. The Board dismissed this testimony on the 

ground that “the market included ‘total number of units 

capable of audible announcement based on Caller ID’ but 

[ClassCo] does not demonstrate that the claims recite the 

system as ‘capable of audible announcement based on 

Caller ID.’” J.A. 14. The Board’s analysis improperly 

 

3 ClassCo did not argue claim 5 separately from 

claims 2 and 14. Thus, like the Board, we focus our nexus 

analysis on claims 2 and 14.

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focuses on the market instead of ClassCo’s product. Our 

cases require consideration of whether “the marketed 

product embodies the claimed features.” Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. v. Philip Morris Inc., 229 F.3d 

1120, 1130 (Fed. Cir. 2000). If a patent owner makes this 

showing, “then a nexus is presumed and the burden shifts 

to the party asserting obviousness to present evidence to 

rebut the presumed nexus.” Id. ClassCo made that 

showing here. It presented unrebutted evidence that its 

products experienced some, albeit limited, commercial 

success, and that those products embodied the claimed 

features. This evidence deserved some weight in the 

obviousness analysis, and the Board’s blanket dismissal of 

it was in error. 

ClassCo also argues that the Board improperly dismissed evidence of a successful licensing program of the 

’695 patent. ClassCo had presented testimony that it had 

licensed the patent to Philips in 1995. But the Board 

dismissed this evidence because it “d[id] not find specific 

evidence demonstrating why ‘Philips took a license from 

ClassCo’ and what specific claim features caused Philips 

to take the alleged licenses, if any.” J.A. 14. We find the 

Board’s conclusion on this issue to be supported by substantial evidence. The parties had disputed before the 

Board whether, as a factual matter, Philips had taken out 

a license for the features in claim 1, or for other business 

reasons. In several declarations submitted by ClassCo, a 

witness testified that Philips was motivated to take the 

licenses because of the features of claim 1. J.A. 1646 (“All 

of the products licensed under the ’695 patent have included the features of claim 1 . . . .”). But ClassCo cancelled claim 1 in an earlier reexamination proceeding. 

After ClassCo cancelled claim 1, it submitted another 

declaration that credited the features of claims 2 and 14

as Philips’s motivation. J.A. 1822. Thus, ClassCo’s own 

inconsistent evidence belies its position and supports the 

Board’s conclusion. Accordingly, the Board’s conclusion 

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that ClassCo had submitted insufficient evidence to prove 

that Philips was motivated to take the license because of 

merits of the claimed invention is supported by substantial evidence. See In re Cree, Inc., 818 F.3d 694, 703 

(Fed. Cir. 2016). 

After weighing ClassCo’s evidence of nonobviousness 

in light of the other three Graham factors, we find no 

error in the Board’s ultimate conclusion of obviousness. 

The examiner and the Board correctly found that the 

combination of Fujioka and Gulick presents a strong 

showing that the claims at issue would have been obvious. 

While the Board erred in giving ClassCo’s evidence of 

nonobviousness no weight, we nonetheless agree that the 

value this evidence possesses in establishing nonobviousness is not strong in comparison to the findings and 

evidence regarding the prior art under the first three 

Graham factors. See Kao, 639 F.3d at 1071–72 (finding 

that the Board erred in ascribing no weight to secondary 

considerations evidence but nonetheless affirming the 

Board’s ultimate holding of obviousness); see also Graham 

v. John Deere Co. of Kansas City, 383 U.S. 1, 36 (1966)

(holding that alleged secondary considerations of commercial success and long-felt need did not “tip the scales of 

patentability” where the invention “rest[ed] upon exceedingly small and quite non-technical mechanical differences in a device which was old in the art”). 

III.

ClassCo also challenges the Board’s construction of 

“identity information” in claim 14. Because the patent 

has expired, the Board construed the claims applying the 

principles explained in Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 

1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc). “[W]e review the Board’s 

ultimate claim constructions de novo and its underlying 

factual determinations involving extrinsic evidence for 

substantial evidence.” Microsoft Corp. v. Proxyconn, Inc., 

789 F.3d 1292, 1297 (Fed. Cir. 2015). Because the parties 

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CLASSCO, INC. v. APPLE, INC. 15

and the Board relied solely on the intrinsic record to 

determine the proper construction, we review the Board’s 

construction de novo. See id. 

The Board adopted an ordinary-meaning construction 

of identity information as “something that identifies, such 

as a name that identifies a phone number as a particular 

person.” J.A. 1107; see J.A. 9 (agreeing with the examiner). ClassCo proposes alternatively that “identity information” is not an abstract concept, and that the ’695 

patent “uses the term ‘identity information’ to mean a 

physical item that can only exist in one place at one time 

(e.g., a particular section of a particular memory element 

containing a stored name . . . ).” Appellant Br. 50. 

We agree with the Board’s construction. Contrary to 

ClassCo’s contentions otherwise, the plain claim language 

and specification support giving “identity information” its 

ordinary meaning. The language of claim 1 does not 

require that identity information be stored in memory. 

The claim merely requires that identity information be 

produced by the processing unit and used by the audio 

announcing circuit. The claim does not, however, require 

identity information to be stored in “a particular section of 

a particular memory element.” Nor does the ’695 specification limit the term this way. Indeed, the specification 

never uses the term “identity information.” ClassCo

points to embodiments in the specification that discuss 

related terms like “caller ID records” and “stored audio” 

that are stored in memory, but these embodiments do not 

limit the term “identity information.” 

ClassCo further argues that claim 2 explicitly defines 

identity information as always being stored in memory. 

We disagree. Claim 2 does not define the term “identity 

information,” but instead requires that claim 1’s processing unit “comprises memory storage for storing identity information.” ’695 patent col. 9 ll. 40–41. Although 

claim 2 requires the processing unit to have memory to 

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16 CLASSCO, INC. v. APPLE, INC. 

store identity information, this limitation in claim 2 does 

not define identity information as information always 

stored in memory. To the contrary, dependent claim 2 

adds the memory-storage limitation, and importing a 

memory requirement into the term “identity information” 

would improperly render claim 2 functionally meaningless. See Cat Tech LLC v. TubeMaster, Inc., 528 F.3d 871, 

885 (Fed. Cir. 2008). We thus decline ClassCo’s invitation 

to import additional limitations into the term “identity 

information” and agree with the Board’s construction. 

CONCLUSION

Because we find that substantial evidence supports 

the Board’s conclusion that claims 2–5, 7, 9, 10, 14, 17, 18, 

23, 26–30, and 34 of the ’695 patent are unpatentable, we 

affirm. 

AFFIRMED 

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