Opinion ID: 807368
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: a signal output for television informa-

Text: 1 The term “information service” appears in ’582 patent claims 5, 7, and 8, ’678 patent claims 1 and 2, ’578 patent claim 9, and ’883 patent claim 1. For ’883 patent claim 26, the district court construed “interactive mode” as “a mode in which the node is providing an information service to the home interface controller . . . .” J.A. 254 (emphasis added); see ’883 patent col.5 ll.40-44. This construction is not challenged. ACTIVEVIDEO v. VERIZON COMMUNICATION 8 tion signal and (ii) a data transceiver op- erative over a data communications link to the headend; a plurality of subscriber selection devices, one device associated with each home in- terface controller and in communication with the data transceiver, for permitting subscriber interaction; and a plurality of interactive controllers, dis- posed at the headend, each interactive controller (i) in television communication with the information source means and (ii) in assignable television communication over the network with an assigned home interface controller and (iii) in assignable data communication over the data com- munications link with the assigned home interface controller, so that the interactive controller furnishes the information ser- vice interactively over the network to the assigned home interface controller and its associated television. ’578 patent claim 8 (emphasis added). Verizon argues that FiOS-TV does not infringe be- cause its “interface” is generated not by the “headend” network as required by the asserted claims but instead by the accused home interface controllers (set-top-boxes or STBs) that are located in subscriber homes. Verizon contends that the asserted claims require the network “headend” to generate and furnish the entire viewer interface and that information content including “[d]ata and metadata are not an interface.” Because the FiOS-TV STBs generate the “generic user interface that is available to the user,” Verizon contends that the FiOS-TV 9 ACTIVEVIDEO v. VERIZON COMMUNICATION headend network does not furnish an “information service.” ActiveVideo responds that the asserted claims do not require the interface to be “network-generated” because under the doctrine of the last antecedent, “having an interface” in the construction of “information service” refers to the television viewer, not the service. Thus, according to ActiveVideo, it is the television viewer that must have an “interface” permitting interaction with a facility of the cable provider. ActiveVideo argues that because the Verizon STBs generate a viewer interface from content received from the FiOS-TV network, the “information service” limitation is met. Even if the interface must be network-generated, ActiveVideo contends the jury’s verdict is supported by substantial evidence that the FiOS-TV interactive media guide, widget, and VoD catalog interfaces are generated by the network. We agree that substantial evidence supports the jury’s verdict and district court’s denial of JMOL. The construction of “information service,” which is not disputed on appeal, requires that the service furnished by the headend network have “an interface permitting (but not necessarily requiring) interaction with a facility of the cable provider.” We disagree with Verizon that the construction requires the entire viewer interface to be furnished by the headend network or that the interface furnished must take any specific form. We likewise reject Verizon’s assertion that under this construction, “[d]ata and metadata are not an interface.” Appellants’ Br. 15. The district court’s construction is not so narrow; it states “interface permitting . . . interaction” and does not otherwise specify the nature of the interface. The construction also does not preclude the interface furnished by the headend from being processed by an STB before being presented to a viewer. Verizon contests factual issues of ACTIVEVIDEO v. VERIZON COMMUNICATION 10 infringement that were appropriately decided by the jury. See 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.”). ActiveVideo’s expert testified at trial that the content for the interactive media guide, widgets, and VoD catalog, which are viewer interfaces provided by FiOS-TV, is provided by the headend to an STB either automatically or as requested by a viewer. J.A. 3811-17, 5239-40, 524851. ActiveVideo’s expert also testified that: [M]ost of the functions that would provide any content to a user, you know, provide a list of things to look at or let you watch a program or something, those all come down from the server. That is the key information that’s passed back from the server and then displayed to the user, for instance, in the form of menus. J.A. 5213-14 (emphasis added). This is substantial evidence from which the jury could reasonably conclude that the content and information provided by the FiOS-TV headend satisfies the information service’s “interface” requirement. See Consol. Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U.S. 197, 229 (1938) (defining substantial evidence as “such evidence as a reasonable mind might accept as adequate to support a conclusion”); Fonar Corp. v. General Elec. Co., 107 F.3d 1543, 1551-52 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (concluding expert testimony was substantial evidence to support jury’s infringement finding); Orthokinetics, Inc. v. Safety Travel Chairs, Inc., 806 F.2d 1565, 1572-73 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (“Because a jury must by definition be permitted to 11 ACTIVEVIDEO v. VERIZON COMMUNICATION accept some probative evidence and reject other probative evidence, we may not decide whether we would as jurors have found [certain] evidence . . . believable in light of the evidence as a whole.” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Accordingly, the district court did not err in denying Verizon’s JMOL on the “information service” limitation.