Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01237/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01237-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
EON Corp. IP Holdings LLC
Appellee
Silver Spring Networks, Inc.
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

EON CORP. IP HOLDINGS LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

SILVER SPRING NETWORKS, INC.,

Defendant-Appellant

______________________ 

2015-1237

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Texas in No. 6:11-cv-00317-JDL, 

Magistrate Judge John D. Love.

______________________ 

Decided: February 29, 2016

______________________ 

 DANIEL ROBINSON SCARDINO, Reed & Scardino LLP, 

Austin, TX, argued for plaintiff-appellee. Also represented 

by CATHERINE BENTLEY HARRIS, JOHN L. HENDRICKS,

RAYMOND WILLIAM MORT, III, JOHN MATTHEW MURRELL. 

 MARK A. LEMLEY, Durie Tangri LLP, San Francisco, 

CA, argued for defendant-appellant. Also represented by 

ELIZABETH OFFEN-BROWN KLEIN, ALEXANDRA HELEN 

MOSS; BONNIE LAU, Dentons US LLP, San Francisco, CA; 

CHARLES GIDEON KORRELL, ROBERT KRAMER, Palo Alto, 

CA; ALAN HODES, Silver Spring Networks, Redwood City, 

CA.

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______________________ 

Before PROST, Chief Judge, BRYSON and HUGHES, Circuit 

Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Chief Judge PROST. 

Dissenting opinion filed by Circuit Judge BRYSON. 

PROST, Chief Judge. 

Eon Corp. IP Holdings LLC (“Eon”) filed this suit 

against Silver Spring Networks, Inc. (“Silver Spring”), a 

utility services network provider, alleging that Silver 

Spring infringed three of Eon’s patents relating to networks for two-way interactive communications. Following 

a five-day trial, the jury found the asserted claims valid 

and infringed, and awarded Eon $18,800,000. On Silver 

Spring’s motion for judgment as a matter of law, the 

district court reversed the jury verdict as to one of the 

three patents but upheld it as to the other two. The court 

also remitted the damages award to $12,990,800. 

Silver Spring appeals to us, raising challenges regarding claim construction, infringement, and damages. 

Because we find that no reasonable jury could have found 

that Silver Spring’s utility meters infringe the two remaining patents, we reverse. 

I 

Eon asserted three patents in this suit: U.S. Patent 

No. 5,388,101 (“’101 patent”), U.S. Patent No. 5,481,546 

(“’546 patent”), and U.S. Patent No. 5,592,491 (“’491 

patent”). All three relate to a two-way interactive communication network system for enabling communications 

between local subscribers and a base station. The ’101 

and ’546 patents, which share the same specification, 

describe various problems with the prior art networks: in 

the presence of heavy subscriber activity, exchanges could 

get jammed, thereby preventing real-time communicaCase: 15-1237 Document: 64-2 Page: 2 Filed: 02/29/2016
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tions; and base stations were unable to service low-power 

subscriber units that transmitted in only the milliwatt 

power range. The ’101 and ’546 patents describe overcoming these problems by using synchronously timed communications (to overcome the jamming problems), and by 

adding local remote receivers throughout a base station 

area (to overcome the inability of low-power subscriber

units to reach the base station). The third asserted 

patent, the ’491 patent, incorporates by reference the ’101 

patent, and adds onto that network system an additional 

modem feature, which can be used as an alternate communication path when the subscriber is otherwise unable 

to communicate into the network.

Eon’s patents describe various contexts in which the 

described networks might be useful. These contexts 

include broadcast television programs, wireless facsimile 

services, pay-per-view services, and when the subscriber 

unit is located poolside, in the basement, or in some other 

location where it would otherwise lack ability to receive 

transmissions. See ’101 patent col. 10 ll. 65–67; ’491 

patent col. 1 ll. 48–53, col. 5 ll. 57–60. Most touted in the

patents is the provision of “interactive video data service[s]” that have “[c]apacity for heavy audience participation without substantial delays during peak loading 

conditions . . . in a manner compatible with the FCC 

licensing conditions for interactive video data service.” 

’101 patent col. 3 ll. 12–16. For example, the patents 

discuss “live video programs viewed nationwide, such as 

world series baseball games,” and how such television 

broadcasts are “interactive for individual subscriber 

participation.” Id. at col. 1 ll. 51–54. In addition to these 

contexts, the patents also scatter, in a handful of places, 

references to other contexts in which the invention might 

be useful: meter reading, inventory control in soft drink 

dispensing machines, and site alarms for remote monitoring of open doors, fires, failure, temperature, etc. Id. at 

col. 6 ll. 5–17. 

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In all the claims found to be infringed, the subscriber 

unit is required to be either “portable” or “mobile.”1 The 

specification provides guidance about what the “portable” 

and “mobile” terms mean. For example, the patents 

describe how “low-cost portable battery-operated milliwatt transmitter subscriber units may be moved throughout the base station geographical area . . . .” Id. at col. 4 

ll. 6–11. They use the term “hand-off” to describe the 

movement of portable units “from cell to cell” and “as 

fringe areas are encountered.” Id. at col. 8 l. 63–col. 9 l. 3. 

And they state that “[t]he portability feature made possible by this invention permits such a unit to be moved next 

door or put into a car or van for movement within or 

across cell boundaries with good digital synchronous 

communication contact within the nationwide network of 

cells.” Id. at col. 11 ll. 6–11. The stated advantages of the 

invention include “long life battery operated portable 

subscriber units . . . which can be moved through the cell 

territory,” and overcoming “interfering signals” and “busy 

signals” that can be “frustrating to the potential using 

audience.” Id. at col. 2 ll. 16–20, col. 6 ll. 1–4, col. 9 ll. 29–

30. 

In Silver Spring’s system, the accused “portable” and 

“mobile” subscriber units are electric watt-hour utility

meters that are attached to the exterior walls of buildings. During claim construction proceedings, Silver 

Spring proposed that the terms “portable” and “mobile” be 

construed as “capable of being easily and conveniently 

moved from one location where the subscriber unit is 

operable to a second location where the subscriber unit is 

operable, and designed to operate without a fixed loca-

 

1 The claims at issue are claims 19 and 20 of the 

’101 patent, and claims 1 and 2 of the ’491 patent. The 

parties agree that the terms “portable” and “mobile” carry 

the same meaning and can be construed the same.

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tion.” J.A. 306. In other words, Silver Spring sought a 

construction for “portable” and “mobile” that “do[es] not 

cover fixed or stationary products that are only theoretically capable of being moved.” J.A. 307. Eon argued that 

neither term needed construction, and both could simply 

be given their plain and ordinary meaning. 

The district court agreed with Eon. The court explained that the terms “do not require construction because their meanings are clear in the context of the claims 

and will be readily understandable to the jury.” J.A. 308. 

In the court’s view, Silver Spring was “asking for nothing 

the plain and ordinary meaning of the terms cannot do on 

their face—distinguish from ‘stationary’ or ‘fixed.’” J.A. 

307. In deciding the claims needed no construction beyond plain and ordinary meaning, the district court 

concluded that it had “resolved the parties’ claim scope 

dispute.” J.A. 308. 

During trial, the parties’ experts disputed the meaning of the “portable” and “mobile” limitations. For example, Silver Spring’s expert testified that the terms 

required that a subscriber unit could be “easily moved 

from one location to another,” J.A. 791, while Eon’s expert 

testified that the terms merely meant that a subscriber 

unit must be “capable of being easily moved . . . but not 

that it actually has to move,” J.A. 616. Eon’s expert 

essentially opined that the terms would include anything 

that was movable, including a house, which can be moved 

“lock, stock, and barrel.” J.A. 641. In the expert’s view, 

“that’s the kind of the world we’re living in . . . everyone is 

sort of—increasingly there are more and more things that 

are mobile.” Id. 

Following the five-day trial, the jury found the asserted claims valid and infringed. On Silver Spring’s motion 

for judgment as a matter of law, the court reversed the 

jury verdict as to the ’546 patent (for reasons unrelated to 

the “portable” and “mobile” limitations), but upheld it as 

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to the ’101 and ’491 patents, rejecting Silver Spring’s 

argument that the evidence did not support the jury’s 

finding that Silver Spring’s meters meet the “portable” 

and “mobile” limitations. 

Silver Spring appeals a number of issues regarding 

claim construction, infringement, and damages. We have 

jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295. The district 

court’s denial of a motion for judgment as a matter of law 

is reviewed de novo. Mirror Worlds, LLC v. Apple Inc., 

692 F.3d 1351, 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2012); Med. Care Am., Inc. 

v. Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co., 341 F.3d 415, 420 (5th Cir. 

2003). The district court’s claim construction is reviewed 

under the standard set forth in Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. 

Sandoz, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 831, 841 (2015). The jury’s infringement determination is a question of fact reviewed 

for substantial evidence. Mirror Worlds, 692 F.3d at 

1356. 

II

We begin with Silver Spring’s challenge regarding the 

“portable” and “mobile” limitations, which is two-fold. 

First, Silver Spring argues that the court’s decision not to 

construe the terms improperly delegated to the jury the 

task of determining claim scope, in violation of O2 Micro 

International, Ltd. v. Beyond Innovation Technology Co., 

521 F.3d 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2008). Second, Silver Spring 

argues that no reasonable jury could have found infringement, as the plain and ordinary meaning of the 

terms cannot encompass Silver Spring’s products. Eon 

responds that the court was correct in not further construing the claim terms, and that the jury’s verdict is supported by the evidence.

We agree with Silver Spring on both points. In O2 

Micro, this court held that “[w]hen the parties present a 

fundamental dispute regarding the scope of a claim term, 

it is the court’s duty to resolve it.” 521 F.3d at 1362. This 

duty resides with the court because, of course, “the ultiCase: 15-1237 Document: 64-2 Page: 6 Filed: 02/29/2016
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mate question of construction [is] a legal question.” Teva, 

135 S. Ct. at 842; see also O2 Micro, 521 F.3d at 1360

(“[T]he court, not the jury, must resolve that dispute.” 

(citing Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F.3d 

967, 979 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (en banc), aff’d 517 U.S. 370 

(1996))). Thus, “[a] determination that a claim term 

‘needs no construction’ or has the ‘plain and ordinary 

meaning’ may be inadequate when a term has more than 

one ‘ordinary’ meaning or when reliance on a term’s 

‘ordinary’ meaning does not resolve the parties’ dispute.” 

O2 Micro, 521 F.3d at 1361. 

Of course, a court need not attempt the impossible 

task of resolving all questions of meaning with absolute, 

univocal finality. Such an endeavor could proceed ad 

infinitum, as every word—whether a claim term itself, or 

the words a court uses to construe a claim term—is susceptible to further definition, elucidation, and explanation. We have therefore often observed that “a sound 

claim construction need not always purge every shred of 

ambiguity.” Acumed LLC v. Stryker Corp., 483 F.3d 800, 

806 (Fed. Cir. 2007); see also Vivid Techs., Inc. v. Am. 

Science & Eng’g, Inc., 200 F.3d 795, 803, (Fed. Cir. 1999) 

(“[O]nly those terms need be construed that are in controversy, and only to the extent necessary to resolve the 

controversy.”); PPG Indus. v. Guardian Indus. Corp., 156 

F.3d 1351, 1355 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (“[A]fter the court has 

defined the claim with whatever specificity and precision 

is warranted by the language of the claim and the evidence bearing on the proper construction, the task of 

determining whether the construed claim reads on the 

accused product is for the finder of fact.”); Function Media, L.L.C. v. Google, Inc., 708 F.3d 1310, 1326 (Fed. Cir. 

2013) (“Nearly every patent case will involve some 

amount of ‘word games,’ because claims and claim constructions are, after all, just words.”). Indeed, we noted in 

O2 Micro that there are limits to the court’s duties at the 

claim construction stage. 521 F.3d at 1362. For example, 

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courts should not resolve questions that do not go to claim 

scope, but instead go to infringement, Lazare Kaplan Int’l, 

Inc. v. Photoscribe Techs., Inc., 628 F.3d 1359, 1376 (Fed. 

Cir. 2010), or improper attorney argument, Verizon Servs. 

Corp. v. Cox Fibernet Va., Inc., 602 F.3d 1325, 1334 (Fed. 

Cir. 2010). 

Thus, a district court’s duty at the claim construction 

stage is, simply, the one that we described in O2 Micro

and many times before: to resolve a dispute about claim 

scope that has been raised by the parties. O2 Micro, 521 

F.3d at 1360 (“When the parties raise an actual dispute 

regarding the proper scope of [the] claims, the court, not 

the jury, must resolve that dispute.”); AFG Indus., Inc. v. 

Cardinal IG Co., 239 F.3d 1239, 1247 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (“It 

is critical for trial courts to set forth an express construction of the material claim terms in dispute.”); Sulzer 

Textil A.G. v. Picanol N.V., 358 F.3d 1356, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 

2004) (“[T]he district court must instruct the jury on the 

meanings to be attributed to all disputed terms used in 

the claims in suit so that the jury will be able to ‘intelligently determine the questions presented.’” (citation 

omitted)); see also Every Penny Counts, Inc. v. Am. Express Co., 563 F.3d 1378, 1383 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (“[T]he 

court’s obligation is to ensure that questions of the scope 

of the patent claims are not left to the jury. In order to 

fulfill this obligation, the court must see to it that disputes concerning the scope of the patent claims are fully 

resolved.” (citation omitted)); TNS Media Research, LLC 

v. Tivo Research & Analytics, Inc., No. 2014-1668, 2015 

WL 5439002, at *22 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 16, 2015) (“[W]hen a 

determinative claim construction dispute arises, a district 

court must resolve it.”). 

Here, the court did not resolve the parties’ dispute by 

instructing the jury that the claims should be given their 

plain and ordinary meaning. During claim construction,

the parties actively disputed the scope of the “portable” 

and “mobile” terms. The crucial question was whether, as 

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Silver Spring argued, the terms should not be construed 

so broadly such that they covered “fixed or stationary 

products that are only theoretically capable of being 

moved.” J.A. 307. By determining only that the terms 

should be given their plain and ordinary meaning, the 

court left this question of claim scope unanswered, leaving 

it for the jury to decide. This was legal error. O2 Micro, 

521 F.3d at 1362.2 

The dissent contends that the court did, in fact, resolve the parties’ dispute by rejecting Silver Spring’s 

“special definition” in favor of plain and ordinary meaning. Dissent at 12. But simply rejecting one proposed 

construction does not mean that a general jury instruction 

to give terms their plain and ordinary meaning resolves 

the relevant dispute. The court remained obligated to 

provide the jury with a clear understanding of the disputed claim scope—and the continuing debate as to the 

meaning of “portable” and “mobile” during the trial belies 

the court’s boilerplate assertion that it did so. Indeed, the 

dissent acknowledges that under O2 Micro, “an instruction giving a term its ‘plain and ordinary meaning’ may be 

inadequate when the term has more than one ordinary 

meaning or when reliance on the term’s ordinary meaning 

does not resolve the parties’ dispute.” Id. (citing O2 

Micro, 521 F.3d at 1361). Those are precisely the circumstances of this case.

Having concluded that the court erred by simply instructing the jury to give the terms “portable” and “mo-

 

2 Although the court somewhat acknowledged the 

importance of context in determining claim scope, see J.A. 

308 (finding the terms’ meanings clear “in the context of 

the claims” and precluding the parties from interpreting 

the terms “in a manner inconsistent with this opinion”), 

the court’s error lied in failing to provide the necessary 

context to the jury.

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bile” their plain and ordinary meaning, we next consider 

whether remand for a new trial is appropriate. Here, it is 

clear that no remand is necessary because, when the 

claim terms are properly construed, no reasonable jury 

could have found that Silver Spring’s electric utility 

meters infringe.3 

We begin, as Phillips instructs, with the principle that 

claims terms are generally given their ordinary and 

customary meaning. Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 

1303, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc). The ordinary 

meaning of a claim term is not “the meaning of the term 

in the abstract.” Id. at 1321. Instead, “the ‘ordinary 

meaning’ of a claim term is its meaning to the ordinary 

artisan after reading the entire patent.” Id.; see also 

Netword, LLC v. Centraal Corp., 242 F.3d 1347, 1352 

(Fed. Cir. 2001) (“The claims are directed to the invention 

that is described in the specification; they do not have 

meaning removed from the context from which they 

arose.”); Toro Co. v. White Consol. Indus., Inc., 199 F.3d 

1295, 1299 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (“Determining the limits of a 

patent claim requires understanding its terms in the 

context in which they were used by the inventor, considered by the examiner, and understood in the field of the 

invention.”). 

A party is, therefore, “not entitled to a claim construction divorced from the context of the written description 

and prosecution history.” Nystrom v. TREX Co., Inc., 424 

F.3d 1136, 1144–45 (Fed. Cir. 2005). Ordinary meaning is 

not something that is determined “in a vacuum.” Medrad, 

 

3 The dissent contends that, assuming the court 

erred in failing to construe the claims, “the remedy would 

be, at most, a new trial.” Dissent at 11. But a new trial is 

not necessary when, as here, the record evidence does not 

support an infringement verdict under the correct construction of the claims. 

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Inc. v. MRI Devices Corp., 401 F.3d 1313, 1319 (Fed. Cir. 

2005). To the contrary, “a word describing patented 

technology takes its definition from the context in which it 

was used by the inventor.” Anderson v. Int’l Eng’g & 

Mfg., Inc., 160 F.3d 1345, 1348–49 (Fed. Cir. 1998).

The dissent runs afoul of these proscriptions by concluding that the “portable” and “mobile” terms have a 

settled “plain and ordinary meaning,” writing that “the 

close parallelism of all the dictionary definitions indicates 

there is only one plain and ordinary meaning,” and relying in part on an example not found in the patents, an 

ordinary household fuse. Dissent at 12. This approach is 

problematic for at least two reasons. First, it is evident 

from the parties’ dispute that there is not a single, accepted meaning of the terms—indeed, a significant portion of 

the trial was devoted to testimony aimed at elucidating 

the metes and bounds of the “portable” and “mobile” 

terms. More importantly, however, the question is not 

whether there is a settled ordinary meaning of the terms 

in some abstract sense of the words. Rather, as we recently explained, “The only meaning that matters in claim 

construction is the meaning in the context of the patent.” 

Trs. of Columbia Univ. v. Symantec Corp., No. 2015-1146, 

2016 WL 386068, at *3 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 2 2016). 

Here, the common disclosure of the ’101 and ’491 patents provides extensive guidance about the terms “portable” and “mobile.” The specification describes the claimed 

units as “low-cost portable battery operated milliwatt 

transmitter subscriber units” that “may be moved 

throughout the base station geographical area.” ’101 

patent col. 4 ll. 6–11; see also id. at col. 6 ll. 20–21 (explaining that the portable units may be moved “to different locations in a house, office, or car”). It differentiates 

the claimed “portable” and “mobile” units from other, nonclaimed “fixed” and “stationary” units. Id. at col. 1 ll. 16–

18 (“[T]he subscriber units comprise low energy, stationary and mobile, digital transceivers.” (emphasis added)). 

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And it describes how, during movement across cell 

boundaries, the portable units maintain “good digital 

synchronous communication contact within the nationwide network of cells.” Id. at col. 11 ll. 6–11. In sum, the 

specification’s guidance on the claimed “portable” and 

“mobile” units is that they are low-power, battery operated units that are easily transported between different 

locations in a house, office, car, or throughout a cell 

territory. 

This guidance from the specification belies Eon’s position at trial that the claim terms “portable” and “mobile” 

should be broadly interpreted as including, essentially, 

anything that is theoretically capable of being moved. 

Before the jury, Eon’s experts testified that “portable” 

simply meant something that was “capable of being easily 

moved . . . but not that it actually has to move.” J.A. 616. 

Their testimony was that the terms would include anything that was movable, which could include a house, 

perhaps, but not a mountain. J.A. 641. Eon’s position 

was, essentially, that because Silver Spring’s meters 

could be moved, they satisfied the claims’ portability 

feature. 

Eon’s position is completely untethered to the context 

of the invention in this case. Although the terms “portable” and “mobile” might theoretically, in the abstract, be 

given such a broad meaning, they cannot be construed 

that way in the context of the ’101 and ’491 patents. 

Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1321. The patents consistently 

describe the “portability” feature of the invention as the 

movement of a low-power subscriber unit across cell 

boundaries, with good digital synchronous communication 

contact throughout the network. This context must be 

considered in determining the ordinary meaning, as the 

“construction that stays true to the claim language and 

most naturally aligns with the patent’s description of the 

invention will be, in the end, the correct construction.” 

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Renishaw PLC v. Marposs Societa’ per Azioni, 158 F.3d 

1243, 1250 (Fed. Cir. 2003). 

Read in their appropriate context, the terms “portable” and “mobile” cannot be construed as covering the 

accused meters in this case. The evidence showed that 

Silver Spring’s electric utility meters are affixed to the 

exterior walls of buildings by being “bolt[ed] . . . down”; 

that they are connected via a wire containing “240 volts”; 

and they are secured in place via an additional “locking 

collar” and “tamper seal.” J.A. 559. The meters are “not 

the owner of the house’s property,” but instead are the 

“electric utility’s property,” who “don’t want the meters to 

be moved . . . [or] in any way tampered with.” Id. A 

certified electrician is required to install or remove a 

meter. J.A. 559, 521. The meters are not intended to be 

moved from building to building, they are usually left in 

place for fifteen years, and there was no evidence that a 

meter was ever detached from one building and reattached to another. J.A. 559, 521, 791. Put simply, the 

meter is “[b]olted to the house. That’s where it’s used. It 

doesn’t change.” J.A. 592. Under no permissible construction of the terms “portable” and “mobile”—given 

their ordinary meaning in the context of the ’101 and ’491 

patents—could a reasonable jury have found that Silver 

Spring’s electric utility meters infringe the asserted 

claims.

Both Eon and the dissent make much of passing references in the specification; Eon relies on references to 

“meter reading” and the dissent relies on references to 

“inventory control in soft drink dispensing machines” and 

“site alarms.” These minor mentions in the specification 

do not warrant a broader construction of the claims’ 

portability requirement. Taking these items in order of 

relevance, Eon argues that the specification’s few references to “meter reading” are an express disclosure that 

“meters” such as Silver Spring’s meet the claims’ portability requirement. But the specification does not say what 

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Eon contends. What the specification actually says is that 

portable subscriber units “may be moved through the base 

station geographical area for reliably performing such 

functions as meter reading.” ’101 patent col. 4 ll. 8–12

(emphasis added). Thus, what the patents describe is 

that a portable battery-operated subscriber unit may be 

brought to the location of the meter for reading it. The 

patent therefore indicates that electric utility meters such 

as Silver Spring’s are not the portable subscriber units 

recited in the claims.

Likewise, with respect to the specification’s references 

to “inventory control in soft drink dispensing machines” 

and “site alarms,” the specification’s brief discussion of 

such embodiments—once in the abstract and twice in the 

body—is so limited that it is impossible to tell what 

component of such embodiments is the portable feature. 

See ’101 patent abstract, col. 6 ll. 5–8, col. 10 ll. 25–28.

Certainly, the patents do not state, as the dissent seems 

to assume, that the portable feature of these embodiments 

are the soft drink dispensing machines and alarm devices 

themselves. Dissent at 7–8. The most that can be gleaned 

from the specification’s limited references to these embodiments is that there may be some portable aspect involved 

in the overall system.

The remainder of the relied-upon portions of the specification are similarly deficient in supporting a broader 

construction. The dissent states that “the ’491 specification refers to the subscriber units as having the capacity 

‘to collect data from a number of home appliances, etc,’” 

arguing that “that is exactly the function that is performed by the accused meters in this case.” Id. at 10

(quoting ’491 patent col. 6 ll. 1–2). But the dissent ignores 

the thrust and context of the cited paragraph, which is 

directed to specific advantages for things such as “wireless facsimile service” and “pay-per-view services,” or in 

circumstances “when the subscriber unit is located, for 

example, at a poolside,” or when “numerous subscriber 

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units placed within homes located, for example, along a 

single street or within the same neighborhood.” 491 

patent col. 5 ll. 55–67. Those examples do not support the 

dissent’s broad construction of the claims’ portability 

requirement. 

Nor are we persuaded by Eon’s argument that “a meter ‘moves’ from one geographic zone to another when it 

switches communication paths from its primary access 

point to its secondary access point due to some other 

obstruction to the communication.” Eon’s Br. 31–32. 

There is no support whatsoever in the specification for 

Eon’s assertion. Every reference to movement in the 

specification is to physical movement throughout a geographic area. Eon’s theoretical view that “portable” and 

“mobile” do not require physical movement strays much 

too far afield from the claimed invention. 

In sum, nothing in the specification supports a conclusion that the claims’ portability feature is broad 

enough to include Silver Spring’s accused devices. The 

crux of the dissenting opinion seems to rest on the small 

size of the meters and the fact that they can be installed 

by hand, and on charges that we erroneously require

“actual movement” and “battery operation” as part of the 

claim terms’ ordinary meaning. Dissent at 3–7. But we 

do not import such requirements into the claims. Rather, 

we simply read the claims in the context of the specification—which describes movement of portable units across 

cell boundaries to facilitate (for example) mobile viewing 

of world series baseball games—to conclude that utility 

meters, which spend their fifteen-year lifespan attached 

to the side of a single house, do not meet the claim requirements of portability and mobility. 

III

We find unpersuasive the remainder of Eon’s arguments regarding the portability feature, including those 

relating to waiver. Because no reasonable jury could have 

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found that Silver Spring’s devices are “portable” and 

“mobile” in the context of the claimed invention, we 

reverse the judgment below, and do not reach Silver 

Spring’s additional arguments.

REVERSED

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United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

EON CORP. IP HOLDINGS LLC,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

SILVER SPRING NETWORKS, INC.,

Defendant-Appellant

______________________ 

2015-1237

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Eastern District of Texas in No. 6:11-cv-00317-JDL, 

Magistrate Judge John D. Love.

______________________ 

BRYSON, Circuit Judge, dissenting. 

The majority holds that “no reasonable jury could 

have found that Silver Spring’s devices are ‘portable’ and 

‘mobile’ in the context of the claimed invention.” I disagree. 

There is no room for doubt that the accused meters 

would qualify as mobile and portable under the ordinary 

meaning of those terms, and the majority does not suggest 

otherwise.1 The central question in this case is whether 

 

1 As the majority opinion notes, the parties agree 

that for the purposes of this case the terms “mobile” and 

“portable” carry the same meaning and can be construed 

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the specifications of the ’101 and ’491 patents demonstrate that the patentee intended to depart from the plain 

meaning of those terms, i.e., “capable of being easily and 

conveniently transported,” and to adopt the meaning 

proposed by Silver Spring, i.e., “capable of being easily 

and conveniently moved . . . and designed to operate 

without a fixed location.” The majority essentially adopts 

Silver Spring’s construction, and in particular the final 

clause requiring that the device be “designed to operate 

without a fixed location.”2 I do not agree that the specifications of the two patents support that restrictive definition. Instead, I conclude that the district court properly 

determined that the terms “portable” and “mobile” were 

used in their ordinary sense in the patent, and that the 

court properly instructed the jury to give those terms 

their ordinary meaning. For that reason, I disagree with 

the majority’s decision that the evidence, viewed in light 

of the proper construction of the claims, was insufficient 

to support the jury’s verdict. 

 

the same. For simplicity, I will generally use the term 

“portable” to refer to both terms.

2 The majority criticizes the district court’s claim 

construction as too broad, but it never explicitly sets forth 

what it regards as the correct claim construction. The 

majority insists that its construction does not require 

“actual movement” or “battery operation” of the claimed 

devices. Elsewhere, however, the majority states (1) that 

the specifications’ “guidance” is that the portable units 

“are low-power, battery operated units that are easily 

transported between different locations,” and (2) that the 

patents “consistently describe the ‘portability’ feature of 

the invention as the movement of a low-power subscriber 

unit across cell boundaries.” Without the aid of an explicit construction, it seems fair to interpret the majority’s 

construction as generally equivalent to Silver Spring’s. 

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I 

The district court determined that the plain and ordinary meaning of the terms “mobile” and “portable” is 

captured by two dictionary definitions to which the court 

referred: “capable of being carried or moved about,” Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary 907 (10th ed. 1999); 

and “capable of being easily and conveniently transported,” McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical 

Terms 1550 (5th ed. 1994). Other courts have reached 

similar conclusions as to the ordinary meaning of those 

terms. See, e.g., Orica Explosives Tech., Pty., Ltd. v. 

Austin Powder Co., No. CV-07-03337, 2008 WL 3914983, 

at *7 (C.D. Cal. Aug. 21, 2008) (“‘[P]ortable’ should be 

given its ordinary meaning of ‘capable of being carried.’”); 

Rosen’s Inc. v. Van Diest Supply Co., No. 03-3206, 2004 

WL 692253, at *9 (D. Minn. Mar. 30, 2004) (The ordinary 

meaning of the term ‘portable’ is ‘capable of being carried’ 

or ‘easily or conveniently transported.’”) (quoting Webster’s Third New International Dictionary 1768 (1993)); 

Google, Inc. v. Network-1 Techs., Inc., No. IPR2015-347 

(P.T.A.B. June 23, 2015) (slip op. at 8-9) (“For purposes of 

this decision, we construe ‘portable’ according to its ordinary meaning as ‘capable of being easily and conveniently 

transported.’”). I agree with the district court that those 

dictionary definitions capture the plain and ordinary 

meaning of these terms, and applying those definitions I 

agree with the district court that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury’s verdict. 

The jury heard extensive testimony over four days of 

trial on the question whether the accused Silver Spring 

meters are mobile or portable. A video of the installation 

of the type of meters at issue was played for the jury at 

trial and relied upon by Silver Spring’s expert for his 

description of how the meters are typically installed. 

That video shows that the accused meters are smaller 

than a volleyball and can be, and are, easily carried and 

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installed by hand. One image from the video shows the 

meter before it is installed:

Defendant’s Exhibit #146. 

Another image from the same video shows one of the 

meters installed on an electrical box attached to the 

outside of a building:

The video, as well as testimony at trial describe the 

installation process. As shown by the video, a technician 

installs the meter by plugging it into a socket in an electrical box on the side of the customer’s house. The techniCase: 15-1237 Document: 64-2 Page: 20 Filed: 02/29/2016
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cian then slips a retaining collar over the meter and bolts 

the collar to the electrical box to secure the meter. 

The meters are plugged into and removed from the socket 

by hand, with no tools necessary. After the meter is 

plugged into the socket, a retaining ring is placed over the 

meter. The retaining ring is then bolted to the electrical 

box, securing the meter against theft. A590, at 76:11-25.

The majority regards the presence of the retaining 

ring and bolt as evidence that the meters are not portable. 

In my view, the fact that the meters need to be secured to 

the electrical box supports the jury’s finding that the 

meters are portable or mobile. A Silver Spring employee 

testified that the meters are locked down because the 

utilities “don’t want the meters to be moved” or “tampered 

with.” A559, at 139:4-11. Thus, the meters are locked to 

the electrical box precisely because they are easy to move 

and carry off, and they need to be secured in order to 

reduce the risk of loss.

The record reflects that a technician can easily carry 

one of the meters to a customer’s house, open the locking 

collar by removing a single bolt, remove the old meter by 

hand, plug in a new meter by hand, plug the meter into 

the house’s electrical system, and replace the locking 

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collar by tightening a single bolt, all in a matter of 

minutes. That evidence provides strong support for the 

jury’s conclusion in this case that the meters are portable 

or mobile.

II

Although the majority holds that “under no permissible construction” could the meters be mobile or portable, 

it does not state what it regards as the proper construction, nor does it describe the boundaries of what it would 

consider a “permissible” construction. The majority faults 

the district court for failing to resolve the parties’ dispute 

as to whether the mobile or portable limitation requires 

that the meters be more than “only theoretically capable 

of being moved.” The opinion focuses on the fact that the 

accused meters are bolted into place with the locking 

collars and are typically left in place for 15 years. From 

that discussion, it seems that the majority is suggesting 

that in order to be “portable,” the meter must actually be 

moved in the course of its typical use.

Actual movement in the course of ordinary use is

clearly not part of the plain meaning of the term “portable.” Many objects are deemed “portable” even though 

they are not designed to be moved repeatedly during use. 

Consider an ordinary household fuse. Such fuses are very 

small, and they can be replaced within seconds when 

needed. Typically a fuse is purchased and installed in a 

fuse box where it remains for its entire useful lifetime, 

potentially many years. The advantages of the fuse’s 

portability are that it can easily be removed when it 

malfunctions and that a replacement can be carried by 

hand to the fuse box and easily installed in place of the 

old fuse. The fact that fuses are not typically moved from 

place to place during their useful lives does not make 

them any less portable. For the same reason, it is improper to suggest that the accused devices in this case are 

not “portable” simply because they are not moved from 

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place to place during the ordinary course of their operation. 

The majority’s main contention is that the specifications of the ’101 and ’491 patents give the terms “mobile” 

and “portable” some special, restrictive meaning. The 

majority draws from the specification the conclusion that 

mobile or portable units are “low-power battery operated 

units that are easily transported between different locations in a house, office, car, or throughout a cell territory.” 

There are several problems with that conclusion. To 

begin with, there is nothing in either of the patents that 

requires the subscriber units to be battery operated, and 

not even Silver Spring argues to the contrary. Moreover, 

the characterization of the claimed devices as being 

“easily transported between different locations” does not 

exclude the accused meters. The evidence shows that the 

meters can easily be transported from place to place for 

purposes of installation or removal, even though once they 

are installed they are not expected to be moved until they 

are replaced. 

In order to exclude the accused meters from the reach 

of the claims, it is necessary to construe the term “portable” to require that the subscriber units actually be moved 

from place to place in the course of their operation. While 

the specifications at various points describe functions that 

could be performed by a device that was expected to be 

moved in the course of its operation, there is nothing in 

the specifications to suggest that such movement during 

operation is a necessary feature of the claimed subscriber 

units.

To the contrary, the specifications contain examples of

subscriber units that clearly would not be expected to be 

moved during their ordinary operation. For example, the 

specification of the ’101 patent states that the “portable 

subscriber units” can perform such services as “inventory 

control in soft drink dispensing machines.” ’101 patent, 

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col. 6, ll. 7-8. Soft drink dispensing machines are typically left in place for long periods of time, so the incorporated 

subscriber units that keep track of the machine’s inventory would not be moved as part of their ordinary operation. 

The ’101 specification also describes the use of subscriber 

units for “site alarms for remote monitoring of open doors, 

fires, failures, temperature, etc.” Id., col. 6, ll. 14-15. 

Again, such monitoring devices would typically be installed in the appropriate place for monitoring and would 

not be expected to be moved during their regular operation. The ’101 specification describes one advantage of 

the portability of such devices as being that they could be 

moved to different locations in a house or office if the need 

arose. Id., col. 6, ll. 19-21. While portability is a benefit 

of the invention because it can make redeployment of such 

a device simple, that does not mean that the devices are 

necessarily expected to be moved during their ordinary 

operation, much less that they would not be deemed 

“portable” if they were expected to stay in the same location for an extended period of time.3

 

3 The majority discounts the references to inventory 

control devices in soft drink dispensing machines and site 

alarms for remote monitoring of conditions in a home, on 

the ground that “it is impossible to tell what component of 

such embodiments is the portable feature.” The specification of the ’491 patent, however, states that in a remote 

monitoring system, the subscriber units are “placed 

within homes” and are therefore “able to collect data from 

a number of home appliances, etc.” ’491 patent, col. 5, 

line 65, through col. 6, line 2. That explanation makes 

clear that the “subscriber unit,” the component at issue, is 

installed in the home and monitors appliances. The 

function of monitoring appliances in a home would not 

entail frequent movement of the device. 

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Although the majority contends that the specification 

“differentiates the claimed ‘portable’ and ‘mobile’ units 

from other, non-claimed ‘fixed’ and ‘stationary’ units,” the

’101 specification does not support that distinction. 

Figures 9A and 9B of the ’101 patent “illustrate portable 

subscriber units afforded by the invention.” ’101 patent, 

col. 10, ll. 3-4. The portion of the ’101 specification that 

describes those figures refers to the use of portable subscriber units to perform “automatic monitoring” functions 

such as “relaying an alarm or inventory reading at a 

subscriber’s coin operated vending machine.” Id., col. 10, 

ll. 26-28. Again, those “monitoring” functions would not 

typically entail the subscriber unit being moved during 

ordinary operation, yet the functions are nonetheless said 

to be performed by the portable subscriber units depicted 

in Figures 9A and 9B, and described in columns 10 and 11 

of the ’101 specification.4

 

The specification of the related ’546 patent is instructive as to the role of the subscriber unit in monitoring 

items such as soft drink dispensing machines. It describes the device as featuring “an automatic monitoring 

control mode for relaying an alarm or inventory reading 

at a subscriber’s coin operated vending machine.” ’546 

patent, col. 9, ll. 63-65. That description of a device that 

relays alarms as to theft or other problems with the 

machine along with information regarding inventory 

clearly contemplates that the monitoring device will be 

associated with the dispensing machine for long periods of 

time, even though it can be redeployed to another machine if the owner choses to move it. 

4 The Brief Description of the Drawings portion of the 

’101 specification characterizes Figure 9A as depicting a 

block circuit diagram of a subscriber unit that performs 

“fixed or mobile communication services,” ’101 patent, col. 

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The specification of the ’491 patent provides further 

evidence that the terms “portable” and “mobile” should 

not be construed restrictively. In discussing the functions 

of a subscriber unit, which is described as being capable of 

being moved, see ’491 patent, col. 3, ll. 26-29; col. 4, ll. 30-

36, 45-50; col. 5, ll. 61-63, the ’491 specification refers to 

the subscriber units as having the capacity “to collect data 

from a number of home appliances, etc.” Id., col. 6, ll. 1-2. 

That is exactly the function that is performed by the 

accused meters in this case, and it is a function that 

would not ordinarily entail moving the subscriber unit 

during its operation. That example of a function of a 

mobile subscriber unit is another indication that the 

patent terms “portable” and “mobile” were not intended to 

have the restrictive meaning assigned to them by the 

majority. 

The majority notes that many of the examples discussed in the specifications involve devices that are 

designed to operate without a fixed location. That is true, 

but it is beside the point. The ordinary meaning of portable, i.e., something “capable of being easily and conveniently transported,” obviously includes devices that are 

moved in the course of their operation. The question is 

whether the meaning of the term “portable,” as used in 

the patents, is limited to such devices. As to that question, it doesn’t matter that many of the examples involve 

devices that are designed to operate without a fixed 

location. What matters is that the specifications contain 

references to devices that are easily transported, but are 

 

ing. But that simply identifies the communication services provided; it does not mean that “fixed” communication services cannot be performed by “portable” subscriber 

units. As noted, the specification at columns 10 and 11 

indicates that portable subscriber units perform precisely 

those “fixed” communication functions.

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not ordinarily moved in the course of their operation. The 

specifications’ references to such devices belie the majority’s restrictive definition of “portable.” 

In sum, the specification indicates that the patentee 

did not use the terms “portable” and “mobile” in a more 

restrictive sense than is suggested by their ordinary 

meaning. Because that ordinary meaning—something 

capable of being easily and conveniently transported—

would clearly apply to the accused devices in this case, I 

disagree with the majority’s holding that the evidence 

cannot support the jury’s conclusion to that effect.

III

The majority also faults the district court for instructing the jury to interpret the terms “portable” and “mobile” 

according to their ordinary meanings rather than defining 

the terms for the jury. Notably, even if the court erred in 

that respect, the remedy would be, at most, a new trial, 

not the judgment entered today, which ends the case. 

Beyond that, however, I do not agree that the district 

court erred by directing the jury to apply the ordinary 

meaning of the terms.

If I am correct in finding that the ’101 and ’491 patents use the terms “portable” and “mobile” in accordance 

with their ordinary meaning, the question as to the correctness of the district court’s instruction comes down to 

whether, even after the court concluded that the terms 

were used in their ordinary sense, the court was nonetheless required to provide a separate definition of those 

terms for the jury. While it is sometimes unclear how far 

a court must go in a patent case by way of defining claim 

terms, there is ordinarily no obligation to provide a special definition for terms that have a widely understood 

ordinary meaning, as long as the court is persuaded that 

the patent uses the terms in that ordinary sense.

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The majority cites O2 Micro International Ltd v. Beyond Innovation Technology Co., 521 F.3d 1351 (Fed. Cir. 

2008), for the proposition that it was improper for the 

court to rely on the plain and ordinary meaning of the two 

terms at issue. But O2 Micro did not state that principle 

in such unqualified terms. Instead, the court explained 

that an instruction giving a term its “plain and ordinary 

meaning” may be inadequate when the term has more 

than one ordinary meaning or when reliance on the term’s 

ordinary meaning does not resolve the parties’ dispute. 

Id. at 1361.

In this case, the close parallelism of all of the dictionary definitions indicates that there is only one plain and 

ordinary meaning of the terms “mobile” and “portable.” 

Moreover, the district court’s instruction that the jury 

should give those terms their plain and ordinary meaning 

resolved the parties’ dispute, because it was clear that 

Eon was relying on the plain meaning of the terms and 

Silver Spring was relying on a special definition of the 

terms that it claimed to be supported by the language of 

the patents. Having concluded that use of the plain and 

ordinary meaning of the terms was sufficient to resolve 

the parties’ dispute as to their meaning, the district court 

permissibly declined Silver Spring’s request to define the 

terms. See Summit 6, LLC v. Samsung Elecs. Co., 802 

F.3d 1283, 1291 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (“The district court 

rejected Samsung’s argument that ongoing activity is 

required—the heart of the parties’ disagreement—and 

declined to further construe the term because it was a 

‘straightforward term’ that required no construction. . . . 

Because the plain and ordinary meaning of the disputed 

claim language is clear, the district court did not err by 

declining to construe the term.”); Biotec Biologische 

Naturverpackungen GmbH & Co. KG v. Biocorp, Inc., 249 

F.3d 1341, 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (district court did not err 

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ing of ‘melting’ does not appear to have required ‘construction,’ or to depart from its ordinary meaning”). 

Beyond that, the district court did not simply leave 

the parties to define the term “portable” as they saw fit. 

In its claim construction opinion, the court referenced the 

dictionary definitions of the term (“capable of being carried or moved about” and “capable of being easily and 

conveniently transported”), and the court directed that 

“the parties may not interpret [the terms portable and 

mobile] in a manner inconsistent with this opinion.”

As directed, the parties complied with the court’s order and interpreted the term in accordance with the 

dictionary definitions quoted by the court. Silver Spring’s 

infringement expert testified that “I think in that context, 

one way of characterizing mobile is to say whether they’re 

easily moved. And I think that’s an understanding of—a 

person of ordinary skill in the art would have had of that 

term as it was used in 1992.” Eon’s infringement expert 

testified similarly, saying, “According to the Court’s 

construction, you do not have to operate the subscriber 

unit while it’s being moved, that’s correct. . . . So what 

the Court was saying—saying is that mobile means 

capable of being easily moved. So the capability needs to 

be there, but not that it actually has to move.”5 

 

5 The majority quotes a passage from the crossexamination of Eon’s expert in which counsel for Silver 

Spring questioned the expert about the meaning of the 

word “movable”: 

Q. By your logic, everything is movable, right? 

You can move the Eiffel Tower, right? You could? 

A. Well, I don’t—I mean, I think you know, 

mountains are not moved. Lots of things are not 

movable. I mean, you know—you know, I mean, 

there are things that are not movable, right? 

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There may be questions at the margin as to whether 

particular objects are “mobile” or “portable,” but in this 

case, the accused meters were plainly portable and mobile 

in the ordinary sense of those terms, for the reasons 

explained above. Assuming, again, that the majority is 

incorrect in assigning those terms a special, restrictive 

definition based on the language of the patents in suit, it 

is difficult to believe that instructing the jury with the 

actual language of the ordinary dictionary definitions 

identified by the district court could possibly have led to a 

different outcome in this case. Under these circumstances, I disagree with the majority that the district court 

committed reversible error by simply telling the jury to 

interpret those terms according to their ordinary meanings. I respectfully dissent.

 

Q. You’ve seen houses—houses can be moved, 

right?

A. Well, yeah. I mean houses are—are moved. 

Q. Your house is not a mobile device, is it? . . . 

A. Well, my house, you know, it can be—you 

know. . . . [I]f you have an antique home, they lift 

these things lock, stock, and barrel, and move 

them, right?

Counsel’s questions in that cross-examination were

directed to what is “movable,” not what is “capable of 

being easily moved,” which both parties’ experts testified 

was the meaning of “portable” in the context of this case. 

Eon’s expert’s testimony on cross-examination therefore 

does not in any way conflict with the definition of “portable” that he gave on direct examination and that the 

district court directed the parties to adhere to. 

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