Opinion ID: 779640
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: control means for selectively coupling said light sources

Text: 117 The control means for selectively coupling appears in claim 4 of the '890 patent. Claim 4 of the '890 patent recites: 118 control means for selectively coupling said light sources in said display areas to said first means, for causing selective ones of said display areas to illuminate in a selected color defined by said display color control signals, and to said second means, for causing the remaining display areas to illuminate in a substantially complementary color defined by said complementary color control signals. 119 '890 patent, col. 10, ll. 16-23. 120 The district court's instruction to the jury construing control means was: 121 Control means includes any firmware, software, and/or hardware that functions to selectively couple the light sources in the display areas to said first means for carrying thereby causing the selective ones of the display areas to illuminate in a selected color.... Control means is defined as a multiplexer. Multiplexers serve to selectively couple each display area of a display device to non-inverting and inverting buses in order to illuminate the display areas with either the desired color or a substantially complimentary color in accordance with the output of the decoder. The decoder output is respectively coupled to the display areas. The multiplexer simultaneously couples the display areas to the display control bus and couples the converted display signal to the background areas of the display device. 122 Telegenix argues that inclusion of any firmware, software, and/or hardware was error. Telegenix argues that the Statement of Reasons for Allowance in the prosecution history of the '890 patent shows that the inventor limited the claims to require a hardware multiplexer, thus firmware or software multiplexers would be excluded. 123 TDS concedes that the control means must include a multiplexer, but TDS contends that the circuit shown in Figure 4 of the '890 patent is not the only implementation of a multiplexer, again citing expert testimony in support. 124 The limitation control means is in means plus function form, and neither party disputes the district court's identification of the recited function, which we conclude is correct. 125 However, for the same reasons announced earlier with regard to the converter means, the district court erred by including any firmware, software, and/or hardware in its identification of the corresponding structure. See Vitronics, 90 F.3d at 1585, 39 USPQ2d at 1579 (Because the specification clearly and unambiguously defined the disputed term in the claim, reliance on this extrinsic evidence was unnecessary and, hence, legally incorrect.). We can find no support in the specification or prosecution history for such a broad array of structures. Instead, the specification describes a hardware multiplexer at col. 5, ll. 45-68 and col. 6, ll. 1-20, illustrated in Figures 3 and 4. We conclude that the correct construction of control means is that of the district court with the phrase includes any firmware, software, and/or hardware that excised from the first sentence and the phrase a multiplexer at the end of the second sentence replaced with the phrase — the multiplexer shown in Figure 4 and described in the accompanying written description, and equivalents thereof —.