Opinion ID: 615097
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Litigation and Claim Construction

Text: In October 2004, Absolute filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the District of Washington alleging that Stealth infringed the three Absolute Patents identified above, as well as other patents that are not at issue on appeal. Stealth Signal counterclaimed for infringement of the '269 Patent and for declarations of non-infringement, invalidity, and unenforceability relating to the Absolute Patents. [1] Stealth successfully moved to transfer the action to the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas, where the case proceeded to final judgment. For purposes of claim construction, the district court appointed a special master, Professor David B. Johnson, Associate Professor of Computer Science and of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University, pursuant to Rule 53 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The special master conducted hearings on the parties' claim construction arguments and, on February 8, 2008, issued a 130-page Report and Recommendation on Claim Construction (R & R). When it appointed the special master, the district court entered an order requiring the parties to file any objections to the special master's recommended claim construction within twenty days of the R & R. [2] See Absolute Software, Inc. v. Stealth Signal, Inc., Case No. 05-CV-1416 (S.D.Tex. Apr. 10, 2007) (Order Vacating Hearing and Appointing Special Master, ECF 143). On February 28, 2008, Absolute and Stealth submitted their respective objections to the special master's claim construction. While Stealth objected to several aspects of the special master's report, in its objections, Absolute commend[ed] the Special Master on an extraordinarily thorough and thoughtful analysis of the claim construction issues, and objected to only two portions of the report, neither of which relate to this appeal: (1) the construction of the term automatically from the Absolute Patents; and (2) a narrow legal issue relating to the construction of a means-plus-function claim. Joint Appendix (JA) 040132. Following the parties' objections, the special master issued an Amendment to the Report and Recommendation on Claim Construction, which amended the claim constructions for three terms, only one of which is at issue on appeal: semi-random rate. On June 17, 2009, the district court adopted the special master's R & R as modified by the Amendment to the Report. The specific claim constructions relevant to this appeal are discussed where appropriate below.