Opinion ID: 212983
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Step (a) – Creating a Database

Text: The district court construed step (a), “creating a database of the available real estate properties,” to mean: 5 MOVE INC v. REAL ESTATE ALLIANCE creating the structure that houses data relating to available real estate properties that are main- tained and arranged for ease and speed of search and retrieval by a computer, such structure in- cluding the tables, the fields in each table, and with relational databases, the relationships between the fields and tables. Creating a database is to be distinguished from uploading data to, inserting data in, adding data to, modifying data within or providing data to an existing database. J.A. 16. The district court’s construction thus encompasses creating only the structure or schema of the database, i.e., creating an empty database with a defined structure. The court acknowledged that the plain language of the claim, creating a database “of” properties, rather than “for” properties, implies that the database is populated with properties when it is created. The court reasoned, however, that “the database is not populated by the inventor, but rather by third-party users, who wish to sell a property.” J.A. 15. The court further noted that the claimed database is “dynamic and not fixed,” and concluded that “the database is not ‘created’ anew each time the database is updated with a new property listing file.” Id. The court further stated that it was “not sure what the inventor could possibly have patented beyond the structure and the schema that permits this dynamic process of database population and maintenance to occur.” J.A. 16. On appeal, REAL argues, and we agree, that the plain language of the claim precludes the district court’s construction. The claim recites creating a database of available properties. Thus, the database must be populated with at least two properties upon creation. These availMOVE INC v. REAL ESTATE ALLIANCE 6 able properties are first mentioned in the preamble, and they are displayed in step (g) and identified in step (h). Moreover, dependent claims 7-11 require that “the database . . . created in step (a)” includes available residential properties, commercial properties, and rental properties. Accordingly, we conclude that the result of the creating step is a database populated with available properties. REAL also argues that the district court’s construction improperly limits “database” to databases having tables and fields, and that the term database is broad enough to encompass a sequential list database with no tables or fields—e.g., a flat file. We agree. Nothing in the specification limits the term database to any particular type of database. “Absent a clear disavowal or contrary definition in the specification or the prosecution history, the patentee is entitled to the full scope of its claim language.” Home Diagnostics, Inc. v. Lifescan, Inc., 381 F.3d 1352, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2004). Nothing before us indicates that the inventor disavowed any particular database implementation. Accordingly, we conclude that step (a) means creating a database containing data representing two or more available real estate properties.