Opinion ID: 780799
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Boot Selection Flag.

Text: 52 The district court held that boot selection flag means the system ID byte of the first partition because: (1) it is not a phrase commonly used in the computer industry; (2) [t]he patent does not give a clear indication that anything other than the system ID byte could be used as the boot selection flag; and (3) the singular form of flag is used in both the claim and the specification. Altiris, 160 F.Supp.2d at 1285-86. Altiris argues that the court erred in not considering the meaning of the individual words and also in limiting the claim to the preferred embodiment. Again, we agree. 53 The court committed two errors here. First, simply because a phrase as a whole lacks a common meaning does not compel a court to abandon its quest for a common meaning and disregard the established meanings of the individual words. See Tex. Digital, 308 F.3d at 1206, 64 USPQ2d at 1821 (construing repeatedly substantially simultaneously activating); Hockerson-Halberstadt, Inc. v. Avia Group Int'l, Inc., 222 F.3d 951, 955, 55 USPQ2d 1487, 1490 (Fed.Cir.2000) (construing central longitudinal groove); K-2 Corp. v. Salomon S.A., 191 F.3d 1356, 1363, 52 USPQ2d 1001, 1004 (Fed.Cir.1999) (construing permanently affixed). As we stated above, resort to the rest of the specification to define a claim term is only appropriate in limited circumstances. Here, the district court seems to have applied the maxim that looking to the specification is necessary where the [phrase] chosen by the patentee so deprives the claim of clarity as to require resort to the other intrinsic evidence for a definite meaning. CCS Fitness, 288 F.3d at 1366-67, 62 USPQ2d at 1663 (citing Johnson Worldwide Assocs. v. Zebco Corp., 175 F.3d 985, 990, 50 USPQ2d 1607, 1610 (Fed.Cir.1999); Gart, 254 F.3d at 1341, 59 USPQ2d at 1295 (internal quotation marks omitted)). This is not the case here because the other words (boot and selection) quite clearly are descriptive modifiers of flag, a term that does have a common meaning in the art. Second, also as noted above, merely because the specification only describes one embodiment is not a sufficient reason to limit the claims to that embodiment. Again, here the specification gives no reason to interpret the limitation so narrowly. Nor is there any prosecution history to narrow the interpretation of the phrase. The preferred embodiment simply identifies the system ID byte as the preferred boot selection flag. The two decisions relied on by the district court are inapposite. We held in Toro Co. v. White Consolidated Industries, Inc., 199 F.3d 1295, 1302, 53 USPQ2d 1065, 1070 (Fed.Cir.1999), that the limitation said cover including means for increasing the pressure, as used in a patent claiming a hand-held vacuum/blower, meant the cover had to have the restriction ring physically attached to it. We so limited the claims because the specification described the unitary structure between the cover and the ring as important to the invention. Id. at 1301, 199 F.3d 1295, 53 USPQ2d at 1069. Toro is not dispositive here because, as we noted above, there is no such statement of importance present in the specification of the '593 patent. 54 In Wang Laboratories., Inc. v. America Online, Inc., 197 F.3d 1377, 1381, 53 USPQ2d 1161, 1163 (Fed.Cir.1999), the parties agreed that in general usage the claim term frame could be applied both to bit-mapped display systems and to character-based systems. The court, however, construed the claims as limited to character-based systems. The court noted that the only system that is described and enabled in the patent specification uses a character-based protocol, and that the specification's references to bit-mapped protocols did not describe them as included in the applicant's invention, and that the specification would not be so understood by a person skilled in the field of the invention. Id. at 1382, 197 F.3d 1377, 53 USPQ2d at 1164. Importantly for our analysis, the inventors disclaimed the broader construction in a statement during prosecution. Id. at 1383-84, 197 F.3d 1377, 53 USPQ2d at 1165-66. Again this case is distinguishable, as the claims of the '593 patent were neither amended, nor was a broader construction disclaimed by argument during prosecution. 55 Because we conclude the district court's construction was erroneous, we must now construe the limitation. To this end, Altiris points to a technical dictionary defining flag as: 56 a marker of some type used by a computer in processing or interpreting information; a signal indicating the existence or status of a particular condition.... [A] flag can be a code, embedded in data, that identifies some condition, or it can be one or more bits set internally by hardware or software to indicate an event ... 57 Microsoft Press Computer Dictionary (3d ed.). Based upon this definition, Altiris argues that a flag can be one or more bits of data or information that act as a signal or marker to identify a status, a condition, or an event. A boot selection flag then, Altiris asserts, is one or more bits of data or information indicating which boot cycle (automation or normal) has been selected. We agree. Indeed, these particular arguments are unchallenged in this appeal. 58 The parties do, however, dispute whether the limitation can properly be construed to read on a system using more than one boot selection flag. The parties agree that a generally means one or more in open-ended claims such as those at issue here. KCJ Corp. v. Kinetic Concepts, Inc., 223 F.3d 1351, 1356, 55 USPQ2d 1835, 1839 (Fed.Cir.2000). Symantec, however, contends that this general rule does not apply here because the sole embodiment described in the patent uses a single flag. Once again, however, there are no statements in the specification or the prosecution history inviting, much less requiring, us to limit the claims to the only disclosed embodiment. This is merely another attempt to limit the invention to the preferred embodiment. We therefore hold that boot selection flag encompasses the use of multiple flags to select the boot cycle. 59