Opinion ID: 209950
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 13

Heading: Finisar's Cross-Appeal

Text: Finisar cross-appeals several of the district court's actions. After vacating the jury's verdict, this court must likewise vacate the district court's grant of a compulsory license. For the same reason, Finisar's objection to the district court's denial of injunctive relief is moot. In contrast, Finisar's cross-appeal with respect to indefiniteness is independent of the vacated jury verdict. 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 2 requires that claims particularly point[] out and distinctly claim[] the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention. For means-plus-function elements, which are statutorily limited to the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof, 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 6, section 112, ¶ 2 requires that the specification must permit one of ordinary skill in the art to know and understand what structure corresponds to the means limitation. Biomedino, LLC v. Waters Techs. Corp., 490 F.3d 946, 949-50 (Fed.Cir.2007) (internal citation omitted). Claims 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 37, each individually or by dependency, include the limitation database editing means . . . for generating . . . and for embedding . . . . Claim 1 is representative: 1. An information transmission system comprising: a set of one or more computer memory devices on which is stored an information database; database editing means, coupled to said one or more computer memory devices, for generating a hierarchically arranged set of indices for referencing data in said information database, including distinct indices for referencing distinct portions thereof, and for embedding said indices in said information database . . . '505 patent, col. 17 l.68  col. 18 l.36 (emphases added). The district court applied the presumption that the patentee's use of means renders this step a means-plus-function claim term, falling within the purview of § 112, ¶ 6. The '505 patent discloses very little about the purported structure corresponding to this claim term. For instance, column 6, lines 37-40, of the '505 patent recites that software 132 (executed by CPU 130) generates a hierarchical set of indices referencing all the data in the information database 112 and embeds those indices in the information database. As the district court correctly noted, this passage provides nothing more than a restatement of the function, as recited in the claim. Markman Order, 416 F.Supp.2d at 519. The specification also describes an alternate embodiment wherein a block of packet ID values are assigned to an off-line information provider, which then organizes them into a database. See '505 patent, col.6 ll.48-51. Once again, the district court correctly noted that this passage provides no algorithm or description of structure corresponding to the claimed function. See Markman Order, 416 F.Supp.2d at 519. For computer-implemented means-plus-function claims where the disclosed structure is a computer programmed to implement an algorithm, the disclosed structure is not the general purpose computer, but rather the special purpose computer programmed to perform the disclosed algorithm. WMS Gaming, Inc. v. Int'l Game Tech., 184 F.3d 1339, 1349 (Fed.Cir.1999). Thus the patent must disclose, at least to the satisfaction of one of ordinary skill in the art, enough of an algorithm to provide the necessary structure under § 112, ¶ 6. This court permits a patentee to express that algorithm in any understandable terms including as a mathematical formula, in prose, see In re Freeman, 573 F.2d 1237, 1245-46 (CCPA 1978), or as a flow chart, or in any other manner that provides sufficient structure. The district court correctly determined that the structure recited in the '505 specification does not even meet the minimal disclosure necessary to make the claims definite. Simply reciting software without providing some detail about the means to accomplish the function is not enough. See Aristocrat Techs. Austl. Pty v. Int'l Game Tech., 521 F.3d 1328, ___ (Fed.Cir.2008) (For a patentee to claim a means for performing a particular function and then to disclose only a general purpose computer as the structure designed to perform that function amounts to pure functional claiming. Because general purpose computers can be programmed to perform very different tasks in very different ways, simply disclosing a computer as the structure designated to perform a particular function does not limit the scope of the claim to `the corresponding structure, material, or acts' that perform the function, as required by section 112 paragraph 6.). This court does not impose a lofty standard in its indefiniteness cases. See, e.g., Med. Instrumentation & Diagnostics Corp. v. Elekta AB, 344 F.3d 1205, 1214 (Fed.Cir.2003). But in this case, the claims are already quite vague. Without any corresponding structure, one of skill simply cannot perceive the bounds of the invention. Thus the district court did not err in adjudging claims 1, 2, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 37 invalid for indefiniteness.