Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01212/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01212-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Sipnet EU S.R.O.
Appellee
Straight Path IP Group, Inc.
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC.,

Appellant

v.

SIPNET EU S.R.O.,

Appellee

______________________ 

2015-1212

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2013-

00246.

______________________ 

Decided: November 25, 2015 

______________________ 

JAMES M. WODARSKI, Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, 

Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., Boston, MA, argued for appellant. Also represented by WILLIAM MEUNIER, NICHOLAS 

ARMINGTON, SANDRA BADIN, MICHAEL NEWMAN, MICHAEL 

T. RENAUD, ADAM PHILLIP SAMANSKY. 

SANJAY PRASAD, Prasad IP, PC, Los Altos, CA, argued 

for appellee. Also represented by PAVEL POGODIN, TransPacific Law Group, Palo Alto, CA. 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 1 Filed: 11/25/2015
2 STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 

BRIAN K. ERICKSON, DLA Piper US LLP, Austin, TX, 

for amici curiae Samsung Electronics Co., LTD, Samsung 

Electronics America Inc., Samsung Telecommunications 

America LLC. Also represented by AARON FOUNTAIN,

Houston, TX; MARK D. FOWLER, East Palo Alto, CA. 

______________________ 

Before DYK, TARANTO, and HUGHES, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge TARANTO. 

Opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part

filed by Circuit Judge DYK. 

TARANTO, Circuit Judge. 

Straight Path IP Group, Inc. owns U.S. Patent No. 

6,108,704, entitled “Point-to-Point Internet Protocol,” 

which describes certain protocols for establishing communication links through a network. On a petition for inter 

partes review filed by Sipnet EU S.R.O., the Patent Trial 

and Appeal Board cancelled claims 1–7 and 32–42 of the 

’704 patent based on determinations of anticipation and 

obviousness. Sipnet EU S.R.O. v. Straight Path IP Group, 

Inc., IPR 2013-246, 2014 WL 5144564 (PTAB Oct. 9, 

2014). We now reject a claim construction on which the 

Board relied for its decision. We reverse the Board decision, and we remand for further proceedings under the 

correct construction.

BACKGROUND

The ’704 patent identifies a deficiency in what the 

prior art taught about real-time voice or video communications between two processing units over a network, such 

as the Internet. According to the specification, the prior 

art disclosed successful protocols for such point-to-point 

communication between users and devices that maintained permanent network addresses. ’704 patent, col. 1, 

lines 48–52. But for systems in which addressing is 

dynamic, i.e., in which devices obtain only temporary 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 2 Filed: 11/25/2015
STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 3

addresses on a network, “point-to-point communications 

in realtime of voice and video have been generally difficult 

to attain.” Id., col. 1, lines 53–56. To solve the problem, 

the summary of the invention identifies a “point-to-point 

Internet protocol” that “exchanges Internet Protocol (IP) 

addresses between processing units to establish a pointto-point communication link,” based on the first unit’s

querying “a connection server to determine the on-line 

status of” a second unit. Id., col. 1, lines 59–61, col. 2, 

lines 1–2. The summary also identifies a second protocol, 

which involves email signaling. Id., col. 2, lines 10–21.

The specification provides some details of operation—

whose significance for claim construction is disputed, as 

discussed below. A processing unit, upon joining a network such as the Internet, automatically transmits its

temporary network address and email address to a connection server. Id., col. 5, lines 25–29. The server stores 

the addresses in a database and timestamps them, id., 

col. 5, lines 29–31, thus “establish[ing]” the unit as “an 

active on-line party available for communication using the 

disclosed point-to-point Internet protocol,” id., col. 5, lines 

32–34; see id., col. 5, lines 35–38 (same for a second unit). 

To reduce the staleness of the status information, the 

server “may use the timestamps to update the status of 

each processing unit; for example, after 2 hours, so that 

the on-line status information stored in the database 34 is 

relatively current.” Id., col. 5, lines 39–44. Another,

seemingly even better means of keeping the database 

information accurate about true on-line status is this: 

When a user logs off or goes off-line from the Internet 24, the connection server 26 updates the 

status of the user in the database 34; for example, 

by removing the user’s information, or by flagging 

the user as being off-line. The connection server 

26 may be instructed to update the user’s information in the database 34 by an off-line message, 

such as a data packet, sent automatically from the 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 3 Filed: 11/25/2015
4 STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 

processing unit of the user prior to being disconnected from the connection server 26. Accordingly, an off-line user is effectively disabled from 

making and/or receiving point-to-point Internet 

communications.

Id., col. 6, lines 6–16. 

When a first unit seeks to set up a point-to-point 

communication link with a second unit, it “sends a query, 

including the E-mail address of the callee, to the connection server 26,” which “searches the database 34 to determine whether the callee is logged-in by finding any 

stored information corresponding to the callee’s E-mail 

address indicating that the callee is active and on-line.” 

Id., col. 5, lines 55–60. “If the callee is active and on-line, 

the connection server 26 then performs the primary pointto-point Internet protocol; i.e., the IP address of the callee 

is retrieved from the database 34 and sent to the first 

processing unit 12.” Id., col. 5, lines 60–64. The protocol 

does not include the actual establishing of the point-topoint communication, but once the IP address is sent to 

the first unit, the first unit “may then directly establish” 

communication with the callee using the latter’s IP address. Id., col. 5, lines 64–67. And: “If the callee is not online when the connection server 26 determines the callee’s 

status, the connection server 26 sends an OFF-LINE 

signal or message to the first processing unit 12.” Id., col. 

6, lines 1–4. 

The specification then describes the “secondary pointto-point Internet protocol,” which involves the sending of 

messages to an email server—either as a supplement to or 

independently of the “primary” protocol using the connection server. See, e.g., id. at col. 6, line 17, to col. 7, line 31. 

And it states that, using the described protocols, real-time 

point-to-point audio, video, and voice communication can 

“be established and supported without requiring permaCase: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 4 Filed: 11/25/2015
STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 5

nent IP addresses to be assigned to either” the caller or 

callee. Id., col. 7, lines 32–36.

Claim 1 of the ’704 patent is representative of the asserted claims:

1. A computer program product for use with a 

computer system, the computer system executing 

a first process and operatively connectable to a 

second process and a server over a computer network, the computer program product comprising: 

a computer usable medium having program 

code embodied in the medium, the program 

code comprising: 

program code for transmitting to the server a 

network protocol address received by the 

first process following connection to the 

computer network; 

program code for transmitting, to the server, 

a query as to whether the second process is 

connected to computer network; 

program code for receiving a network protocol 

address of the second process from the server, when the second process is connected to 

the computer network; and 

program code, responsive to the network protocol address of the second process, for establishing a point-to-point communication 

link between the first process and the second process over the computer network.

’704 patent, col. 11, lines 2–22 (emphasis added to highlight the key claim phrase at issue). 

In its petition for inter partes review of the ’704 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 312, Sipnet requested cancellation 

of claims 1–7 and 32–42 as anticipated by and obvious 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 5 Filed: 11/25/2015
6 STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 

over several prior-art references, most significantly “NetBIOS” and “WINS.” The Board, under authority delegated by the Director of the Patent and Trademark Office, 

instituted inter partes review under § 314. The Board 

then conducted the review pursuant to § 316 and reached 

a final decision cancelling the challenged claims under 

§ 318. Sipnet, supra. 

Of central importance on appeal, the Board adopted 

Sipnet’s proposed construction of the claim language 

highlighted above. Although the parties agreed that the 

language requires “being on-line,” they disagreed about 

whether, as Straight Path contended, the language refers 

to a present-tense status, J.A. 299–302, 305–10, or 

whether, as Sipnet contended, it “simply requires being 

registered with the server.” Sipnet, 2014 WL 5144564, at 

*3. The Board adopted Sipnet’s view as the broadest 

reasonable construction based on the specification: “‘connected to the computer network’ encompasses a processing unit that is ‘active and on-line at registration.’” 

Id. at *4. As is not disputed here, what the Board meant 

was that, to come within the query claim language, all the 

query from the first unit need do is request whatever the 

connection server has listed about a second unit’s on-line 

status, even if the listed information is not accurate at the 

time of the query, i.e., even if it lists the second unit as 

online when, at that time, it is in fact not online. 

Based on that construction, the Board concluded that 

claims 1–7, 32, and 38–42 were anticipated by NetBIOS, 

claims 1–7 and 32–42 were anticipated by WINS, and 

claims 33–37 were invalid for obviousness over NetBIOS 

and WINS. Id. at *8–15. Straight Path appeals under 35 

U.S.C. §§ 141, 319, challenging the claim construction just 

described and also presenting an argument about the 

term “process” in the claims. We have jurisdiction under 

28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A).

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 6 Filed: 11/25/2015
STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 7

DISCUSSION

A 

There being no dispute here about findings or evidence of facts extrinsic to the patent, whether facts about 

outside-the-patent understandings of technical words or 

other facts, we conduct a de novo review of the Board’s 

determination of the broadest reasonable interpretation of 

the claim language. See In re Cuozzo Speed Technologies, 

LLC, 793 F.3d 1268, 1279–80 (Fed. Cir. 2015); Microsoft 

Corp. v. Proxyconn, Inc., 789 F.3d 1292, 1297 (Fed. Cir. 

2015). Straight Path notes that the patent has now 

expired and on that basis asks us to determine the governing construction under the principles of Phillips v. 

AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc), 

because the Board applies Phillips, rather than the 

broadest-reasonable-interpretation standard, for expired 

patents. See In re Rambus, Inc., 753 F.3d 1253, 1256 

(Fed. Cir. 2014). We need not explore the issues raised by 

that request, however, because we conclude that the 

Board adopted a claim construction that is erroneous even 

under the broadest-reasonable-interpretation standard. 

We start with the claim language—which has a meaning that can only be called plain. The present tense “is” in 

“is connected to the computer network” plainly says that 

the query transmitted to the server seeks to determine 

whether the second unit is connected at that time, i.e., 

connected at the time that the query is sent. The question asked by the query is whether the device “is” connected, not whether it was connected or whether it is still 

registered as being connected even if that registration 

information is no longer accurate. It is not a reasonable 

interpretation of the claim language, considering its plain 

meaning, to say that it is satisfied by a query that asks 

only for registration information, regardless of its current 

accuracy.

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 7 Filed: 11/25/2015
8 STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 

The Board said nothing that either recognizes or disputes the plain present-tense meaning of the claim language on its face. Indeed, the Board’s construction—

“active and on-line at registration,” Sipnet, 2014 WL 

5144564, at *4 (emphasis added)—implicitly recognizes 

that being online is a status that can change over time: 

having the status “at registration” is having it at a particular time. The query required by the claim language asks 

if the callee “is” online, which is a question about the 

status at the time of the query. But the Board did not 

address the facially clear meaning, instead turning immediately to the specification.

Sipnet does much the same thing. Sipnet repeatedly 

recognizes and stresses the difference between “past

online status” and “current online status,” the latter being 

“opposed to the past status at registration.” Sipnet Br. at 

21 (emphases in original); see id. at 8–9. Yet Sipnet offers 

no argument that, as a matter of plain meaning, the claim 

language “is” calls for anything but present-status information. Nor does it point to anything in other claim 

language that contradicts that plain meaning. Like the 

Board, Sipnet relies entirely on the specification.

When claim language has as plain a meaning on an 

issue as the language does here, leaving no genuine 

uncertainties on interpretive questions relevant to the 

case, it is particularly difficult to conclude that the specification reasonably supports a different meaning. The 

specification plays a more limited role than in the common situation where claim terms are uncertain in meaning in relevant respects. The reason is that, unless there 

is a disclaimer or redefinition, whether explicit or implicit, 

the proper construction of any claim language must, 

among other things, “stay[] true to the claim language,” 

and, in order to avoid giving invention-defining effect to 

specification language included for other descriptive and 

enablement purposes, “the court’s focus remains on understanding how a person of ordinary skill in the art 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 8 Filed: 11/25/2015
STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 9

would understand the claim terms.” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 

1316, 1323, 1324 (internal quotation marks omitted); id.

at 1321. Reflecting the distinct but related roles of the

claims and specification, the governing approach to claim 

construction thus maintains claim language’s key (not 

always decisive) role in claim construction: it stresses the 

importance of the specification in identifying and resolving genuine uncertainties about claim language, and in 

stating redefinitions or disavowals, id. at 1315–17, while 

it rejects a sequenced, dictionary-driven, burden-shifting 

approach to claim construction, id. at 1320–24. Under 

our Phillips approach, the plainness of the claim language 

necessarily affects what ultimate conclusions about claim 

construction can properly be drawn based on the specification. For that reason, the court has repeatedly stated

since Phillips that redefinition or disavowal is required 

where claim language is plain, lacking a range of possible 

ordinary meanings in context. See Pacing Technologies, 

LLC v. Garmin Int’l, Inc., 778 F.3d 1021, 1024 (Fed. Cir. 

2015) (citing authorities). 

Here, the specification does not provide a basis for 

reasonably adopting a construction that contradicts the 

plain meaning of the claim language. The Board relied on 

just one passage from the specification—which says that

“a second user operating the second processing unit, upon 

connection to the Internet through a connection service 

provider, is processed by the connection server to be 

established in the database as an active on-line party.” 

’704 patent, col. 5, lines 34–38 (emphasis added); see id., 

col. 5, lines 31–34 (similarly as to the first unit: registration establishes it “as an active on-line party available for 

communication” using the disclosed protocol). But that 

passage says no more than that the unit is active and 

online—available for communication—at the time it 

registers. It does not expressly or implicitly redefine “is 

connected” to mean “is still registered, once was connected, and may or may not still be connected,” and it does not 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 9 Filed: 11/25/2015
10 STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 

otherwise establish that being active and online at the 

time of registration means, even if contrary to fact, being 

active and online when a caller’s query for a callee’s 

status comes in.1

Indeed, the immediately following passage recognizes 

the temporal nature of the status of actually being online. 

The specification says that the connection server “may use 

the timestamps to update the status of each processing 

unit” over time to try to keep the “on-line status information stored in the database 34 relatively current.” Id., 

col. 5, lines 39–42. Whether that passage refers to “registration time-outs,” Sipnet Br. at 23, or to “actively 

check[ing] whether a process is still connected to the 

network,” J.A. 296 (Patent Owner’s Response), the passage clearly presupposes that the database listing of a 

unit as an active online party can become false over time. 

Contrary to the Board’s construction, the specification 

thus distinguishes, rather than equates, being online and 

being (or having been) registered.

The Board did not rely on any other basis for its construction, and Sipnet does not meaningfully do so in this 

court. Two additional passages from the specification are 

nevertheless worth noting. They confirm that there is no 

basis for departing from the plain meaning of the claim 

language. 

1 At oral argument, the following exchange occurred 

with Sipnet’s counsel: “THE COURT: It describes, of 

course, a connection server that makes a database. When 

somebody registers, that registration means, right then 

and there, they’re active and online. A: Correct. THE 

COURT: But then that doesn’t tell you what the answer 

is to the question asked a day later, ‘Are you active and 

online?’ That could be out of date. A: That’s right.” Oral 

Argument at 21:19–21:43 (discussing ’704 patent, col. 5).

 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 10 Filed: 11/25/2015
STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 11

The specification says that, when a first unit sends a 

query to the connection server, the latter “searches the 

database to determine whether the callee is logged-in by 

finding any stored information corresponding to the 

callee’s E-mail address indicating that the callee is active 

and on-line.” ’704 patent, col. 5, lines 57–60. That language merely describes checking the database for stored 

information. It does not state that whatever information 

is stored, no matter how the connection server operates,

establishes whether the callee is active and online. 

Moreover, the specification immediately continues 

with a description of how a connection server might work 

so as to shrink if not completely eliminate any gap between recorded status and true status: “[w]hen a user logs 

off or goes off-line from the Internet, the connection server

26 updates the status of the user in the database; for 

example, by removing the user’s information, or by flagging the user as being off-line.” Id., col. 6, lines 6–9; see 

id., col. 6, lines 10–14 (the “server 26 may be instructed to 

update the user’s information in the database by an offline message . . . sent automatically from the processing 

unit of the user prior to being disconnected from the 

connection server”). At oral argument, Sipnet’s counsel 

seemed to agree that the passage describes what must be 

“happening if the connection server answer is going to do 

what the claim language requires, supply an answer to 

the query whether the second process is connected to the 

computer network.” Oral Argument at 24:10–25:03. The 

specification’s indication of how a particular server process can provide accurate information undermines the 

notion that the specification generally redefines “is connected” to include active and online at registration, even if 

not at the time of the query. 

The plain meaning of the claim language is therefore 

not overridden by the specification. And the plain meaning is positively confirmed by the prosecution history, 

which we have indicated is to be consulted even in deterCase: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 11 Filed: 11/25/2015
12 STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 

mining a claim’s broadest reasonable interpretation. See

Proxyconn, 789 F.3d at 1298. In distinguishing claims 1–

7 and 32–42 over NetBIOS and its “active name” disclosure to overcome a rejection during reexamination, the 

assignee of the ’704 patent made the very distinction that 

is at issue here—between still being registered and actually being online: 

“[A]n active name” is not synonymous with an “online status with respect to the computer network.” 

An active name simply refers to a name that has 

been registered and that has not yet been deregistered, independent of whether the associated 

computer is or is not on-line. . . . NetBIOS does 

not teach that an active name in NetBIOS is synonymous with “whether the second process is connected to the computer network.” An active name 

simply refers to a name that has been registered 

and that has not yet been de-registered, independent of whether the associated computer is or 

is not connected to the computer network.

Reply to Office Action of August 27, 2009, reexamination 

of ’704 patent, control no. 90/010,416 (dated Nov. 27, 

2009) at 11, 14–15. After the assignee made that distinction, the examiner withdrew the rejection and confirmed 

the claims. 

One final point about this claim-construction issue: 

Sipnet suggests in various ways that the specification 

does not adequately describe or enable the systems or 

processes involving a query about current connection 

status under Straight Path’s claim construction. But 

written-description and enablement challenges were not, 

and could not have been, part of the inter partes review 

that is now before us. See 35 U.S.C. § 311(b) (limiting 

challenges to prior-art challenges). Such challenges 

involve bottom-line or subsidiary factual issues that have 

not been litigated or adjudicated. Accordingly, Sipnet’s 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 12 Filed: 11/25/2015
STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 13

arguments about insufficient specification support for the 

claims if they are given their plain meaning, arguments 

not adopted by the Board, do not alter our conclusion 

about claim construction. We offer no view on the merits 

of Sipnet’s suggestion of written-description or enablement problems. 

For the foregoing reasons, “is connected to the computer network” in the ’704 patent’s claims—and the 

counterpart claim phrases that the parties agree bear the 

same meaning—can only reasonably be understood to 

mean “is connected to the computer network at the time 

that the query is transmitted to the server.” The Board 

did not apply this claim construction in considering the 

prior art, including NetBIOS and WINS. It should do so

on remand. 

B 

Straight Path’s second challenge to the Board’s decision rests on the contention that the Board failed to 

construe “process.” We hold that Straight Path did not 

preserve that contention. It did not request a construction of “process” in its preliminary response to Sipnet’s 

petition to institute inter partes review, in its response 

after the Board instituted the review, or at the oral hearing before the Board. In particular, Straight Path never 

argued for a construction of “process” under which a 

process being connected meant something other than its 

host device being connected. Nor did Sipnet. The Board

thus committed no error in not construing “process.” 

Because Straight Path’s “process”-based challenge depends entirely on its newly proposed construction, which 

it failed to preserve before the Board, this court does not 

address the challenge. 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 13 Filed: 11/25/2015
14 STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 

CONCLUSION

We reverse the Board’s cancellation of claims 1–7 and 

32–42 of the ’704 patent, and we remand for further 

proceedings consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 14 Filed: 11/25/2015
United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC.,

Appellant

v.

SIPNET EU S.R.O.,

Appellee

______________________ 

2015-1212

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2013-

00246.

______________________ 

DYK, Circuit Judge, concurring-in-part, dissenting-inpart. 

I respectfully dissent from the majority’s claim construction of the term “is connected to the computer network” to require absolute currency in a real-time 

assessment of connectivity. The majority’s insistence that 

“is” requires absolute currency fails to take account of a 

common usage of the term “is” and our prior decision in 

Paragon Solutions, LLC v. Timex Corp., holding that a 

reference to “real-time” does not necessarily require 

absolute currency. 566 F.3d 1075, 1088 (Fed. Cir. 2009). 

More importantly, the majority fails to give sufficient 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 15 Filed: 11/25/2015
2 STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 

weight to the specification which Phillips v. AWH Corp.

holds “is always highly relevant to the claim construction 

analysis” and is “the single best guide to the meaning of a 

disputed term.” 415 F.3d 1303, 1315 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en 

banc) (internal quotations and citations omitted) (emphasis added).1 

I 

The patent here claims a system, an apparatus, and 

associated methods to facilitate real time communication 

between two users over the internet. When a user logs 

onto the internet, he is assigned a dynamic IP address

(akin to a phone number for a computer). Because this IP 

address may be different every time the user logs on, 

direct communication is nearly impossible, just as making 

a phone call to someone would be if phone numbers 

changed on every call. The present invention purportedly 

solves this problem by maintaining a database of IP 

addresses in a central server. As the specification describes, when a user logs onto the network, his computer 

sends a current IP address and an email address to a 

central server. ’704 patent, col. 5, lines 25–29. When 

1 The Board applied the broadest reasonable interpretation standard (“BRI”) rather than Phillips. Normally, BRI applies in inter partes review, see In re Cuozzo 

Speed Techs., LLC, 793 F.3d 1268, 1279 (Fed. Cir. 2015),

but given that the patent expired on September 25, 2015, 

during the pendency of this appeal, the patentee contends 

that the Phillips standard should apply. The majority 

does not decide this issue because it contends that even 

under BRI, the Board’s construction was incorrect. In my 

view, the majority’s construction is incorrect even under

Phillips, and, like the majority, I see no significant difference between the Phillips and BRI standards as applied 

here. 

 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 16 Filed: 11/25/2015
STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 3

another user wishes to initiate real-time communication 

with the first user (for example, a video telephone call), 

his computer will query the server with the first user’s 

email address. Id. at col. 5, lines 55–60. If the database 

indicates that the first user is online, the server will send 

the second user the IP address of the first user, enabling 

the second user to initiate direct real-time communication

with the first user. Id. at col. 5, lines 60–64. All parties 

agree that discovering whether a user “is connected to the 

network” involves a check of the server’s database.

II

The present claim construction dispute arises in the 

context of an inter partes review in which the Patent 

Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) found the claims of 

the patent anticipated and/or obvious over two pieces of 

prior art that disclosed similar server-based databases of 

IP addresses. The patentee contends that these prior art 

disclosures do not read on the patent claims because the 

claims here require a real-time check, which is not disclosed by the prior art. Relying on the specification, 

which indicates that the database only need be “relatively 

current,” ’704 patent, col. 5, lines 39–42, the Board rejected this construction. On appeal, the entire anticipation/obviousness question now depends on the

construction of the term “is connected to the network.” 

The majority rejects the Board’s specification-based 

construction, holding that the word “is” necessarily denotes currency and cannot accommodate a situation in 

which information is even slightly out of date. The majority states that “the present tense ‘is’ in ‘is connected to the 

computer network’ plainly says that the query transmitted to the server seeks to determine whether the second 

unit is connected at that time, i.e., connected at the time 

that the query is sent.” Maj. Op. at 7. “When claim 

language has as plain a meaning on an issue as the 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 17 Filed: 11/25/2015
4 STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 

language [in this claim] does, . . . [t]he specification plays 

a more limited role than in the common situation where 

claim terms are uncertain in meaning in relevant respects.” Id. at 8. The majority then concludes that “the 

specification does not provide a basis for reasonably 

adopting a construction that contradicts the plain meaning of the claim language.” Id. at 8. According to the 

majority, the Board’s construction was erroneous because 

it “did not address the facially clear meaning, instead 

turning immediately to the specification.” Id. at 8. In 

other words, the majority relies on the meaning it assigns 

to claim language based on its own knowledge of word 

usage rather than relying on the patentee’s own specification. 

III 

Contrary to the majority’s assertion, ordinary usage 

easily accommodates the Board’s interpretation of “is 

connected.” If a person says that “John is at home,” this 

might lead to the question: “How do you know?” The 

response “I spoke to him five minutes ago” would not be 

viewed as contradicting the original statement, even 

though John might have left home in the intervening five 

minutes. In other words, the use of the word “is” does not 

necessarily imply absolute accuracy or absolute currency. 

In any event, under the Phillips approach, we must 

look to the specification as the “single best guide to the 

meaning of a disputed term.” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1315. 

This is true, contrary to the majority’s assertion, even in 

cases where language, on its face, appears to have a plain 

meaning, because, as Phillips states, the specification “is 

always highly relevant to the claim construction analysis.” Id. (emphasis added). The only meaning that matters is the meaning in the context of the patent. See id. at 

1316 (citing to and quoting Netword, LLC v. Centraal 

Corp., 242 F.3d 1347, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (“The claims 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 18 Filed: 11/25/2015
STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 5

are directed to the invention that is described in the 

specification; they do not have meaning removed from the 

context from which they arose.”))

In other cases, we have appropriately paid primary 

attention to the specification, including a case involving a 

nearly identical situation, Paragon Solutions. 566 F.3d at 

1088. The majority’s insistence that “is” requires currency independent of the specification is directly contrary to 

this prior decision, which faithfully followed Phillips. We 

held that “displaying real-time data” “cannot mean instantaneous” based on a reading of the claim language in 

the context of the specification. Paragon Solutions, 566 

F.3d at 1088. This case involved an exercise monitoring 

system (which can be worn on the wrist) that displays 

data to the user from both an “electronic positioning 

device” and from a “physiological monitor.” Id. at 1083. 

Despite seemingly similar clarity in the language of the 

claim—“a display unit configured for displaying real-time 

data”—we recognized that claim language cannot be read 

in isolation and looked to the specification in determining 

the ordinary meaning of the claim language. Id. at 1088. 

Because the claim required data that, according to the 

specification, took time to develop, we rejected the district 

court’s technical dictionary-based construction and held 

that “real-time” did not mean “instantaneous.” See id. at 

1092. The majority’s conclusion that “is” necessarily 

requires currency here contravenes the holding of Paragon Solutions. 

The majority’s construction of the term is also contrary to the specification in this case. The specification is 

clear that “is connected” does not require a real-time 

check. The specification—the “single best guide to the 

meaning of a disputed term,” see Phillips, 415 F.3d at 

1315—describes that, when a query is received, the server 

“searches the database . . . to determine whether the 

callee is logged-in by finding any stored information

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 19 Filed: 11/25/2015
6 STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 

corresponding” to that queried user. ’704 patent, col. 5, 

lines 57–59 (emphasis added). This information in the 

database, as described by the specification, is kept “relatively current.” Id. at col. 5, lines 39–42. Checking historical “relatively current” information in a database is 

not a “real time” determination. 

The majority’s construction is not only inconsistent 

with the general description of the invention, it is also 

inconsistent with the described embodiments. At oral 

argument, the patentee conceded that its construction, 

now adopted by the majority, would require the database 

to be always accurate.2 In the preferred embodiment, a 

database record is created when a user logs on to the 

network. ’704 patent, col. 5, lines 25–29. Everyone 

agrees that checking whether a user “is connected to the 

network” involves checking that database record. But 

this embodiment includes mechanisms to detect if a user 

is no longer on-line that do not guarantee the accuracy of 

that record. For example, the server will periodically 

(e.g., every 2 hours) update the database, looking to see 

whether a record has been updated during that time 

period. Id. at lines 39–40. If the record is too old, the

server will change the database record to indicate that the 

user is no longer online. See id. This check can be out of 

date because of the time between periodic checks. The 

embodiment also describes that when a user logs off, that 

user’s computer can send a log-off message to the server, 

which will then update the database record to indicate 

that that particular user is not online. Id. at col. 6, lines 

2 At oral argument, the patentee was asked whether its “view is that the database must always be accurate, 

and that’s the difference between [the patented invention] 

and the prior art, correct?” The patentee responded, 

“That is correct, your honor.” Oral Argument at 34:53. 

 

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 20 Filed: 11/25/2015
STRAIGHT PATH IP GROUP, INC. v. SIPNET EU S.R.O. 7

6–16. As the Board found, even this method will not 

prevent a non-current response to a query to the database 

when, for example, the first user’s computer crashes or 

otherwise fails to send a log-off message to the server. 

Thus, as the patent itself recognizes, the information in 

the database will only be “relatively current,” and there is 

no disclosure in the specification that would warrant 

construing “is connected” to require absolute accuracy. 

I respectfully dissent.

Case: 15-1212 Document: 54-2 Page: 21 Filed: 11/25/2015