Opinion ID: 855071
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “awarding said one progressive prize”

Text: In granting summary judgment for IGT, the district court found no evidence that the patentee intended the term “awarding said one progressive prize” to mean something other than its ordinary meaning. Thus, the court construed the “awarding prize” limitation as conferring rights to a prize as opposed to simply displaying for viewing the amount of the prize won. Specifically, the district court found that the claims of the ’215 patent include both the steps of identifying the prize to a player and awarding said prize to the player; if the awarding step could be met by displaying the prize amount, the identifying step would be rendered superfluous. Because “[i]t is undisputed that during the testing of gaming machines, legal entitlement to a prize is never conferred upon IGT employees,” the district court determined that the “awarding step” was not performed by IGT during the testing of the machines and summary judgment in favor of IGT was appropriate. Aristocrat, 714 F. Supp. 2d at 997. Aristocrat argues on appeal that, contrary to the district court’s construction, the “awarding” step does not “require a transfer of legal entitlement to the prize” and that “awarding” means “presenting” or “display[ing]” to 12 ARISTOCRAT TECH v. INTL GAME TECH “the player the monetary amount determined to be due.” Appellant’s Br. at 31-32. Aristocrat first argues that “the intrinsic evidence shows that the ‘awarding’ step occurs when the gaming machine presents” or “display[s] to the player” a “monetary amount due.” Id. at 32. For example, because the preamble of each of the claims begins with: “In a network of gaming machines . . . ,” Aristocrat asserts that the specification confirms its understanding that the system itself, without involvement of the game operator or the player, performs the awarding step. Aristocrat also points to the statement that: [p]referably, the prize awarded in a jackpot game by the system of the present invention, is a mone- tary amount the value of which is incremented with each game played on each gaming machine or console in the system. Alternatively, the in- crementation can take place on a per token bet basis. ’215 patent col. 4 ll. 45-50. And according to Aristocrat, that Figure 2 depicts a “prize awarding algorithm” that may be programmed into the gaming machine in an embodiment of the claimed method is further evidence that the system performs the awarding step without involvement of the player. Finally, Aristocrat argues that defining “awarding” in terms of conferring a “legal entitlement” produces an absurd result, wherein “claim scope could differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, depending on what constitutes ‘legal entitlement.’” Appellant’s Br. at 36. The awarding step, therefore, could never be met “by a gaming machine in Utah or Hawaii because under their laws no person is legally entitled to an award by a slot machine.” Id. at 37. Yet, in other states where gambling is legal, Aristocrat argues, “that same person playing the same machine with the same outcome may be legally entitled to an award.” Id. IGT counters that Aristocrat’s construction is “at odds ARISTOCRAT TECH v. INTL GAME TECH 13 with the ordinary meaning of ‘awarding’” in that it fails to correspond to the dictionary definitions cited by Aristocrat. Appellee’s Br. at 33. IGT also contends that Aristocrat’s construction is inconsistent with the claim language surrounding the term at issue. Specifically, as did the district court, IGT points to the additional steps of “displaying” and “identifying” the prize as confirmation that awarding means conferring an entitlement, rather than “presenting” the amount due. Thus “awarding” must have a different meaning from those other terms and Aristocrat’s construction “would render the ‘identifying’ step superfluous.” Id. at 35 (citing Merck & Co. v. Teva Pharms. USA, Inc., 395 F.3d 1364, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“A claim construction that gives meaning to all the terms of the claim is preferred over one that does not do so.”)). And, the “construction that Aristocrat would give to ‘awarding,’ i.e., displaying to the player the amount to be awarded, is precisely the same action that is performed in the immediately preceding step[] [of] ‘identifying to the player said one progressive prize . . . that has been won.’” Appellee’s Br. at 35. IGT also argues that the specification uses “award” and “pay” interchangeably. First, IGT points to the specification’s descriptions of prior art schemes for inducing play at slot machines: Many schemes have been devised in the past to induce players to play slot machines including schemes such as specifying periods during which jackpot prizes are increased or bonus jackpots paid. Other schemes involve awarding an addi- tional prize to a first player to achieve a prede- termined combination on a poker machine. ’215 patent col. 1 ll. 13-18 (emphasis added); [O]ne . . . prior art arrangement . . . pays the jack- pot prize when the count reaches some predeter- mined and randomly selected number. In a more 14 ARISTOCRAT TECH v. INTL GAME TECH recent prior art arrangement, . . . the prize is awarded to a machine when the game number it is allocated matches a preselected random num- ber. ’215 patent col. 1 ll. 26-35 (emphasis added). IGT also refutes Aristocrat’s reliance on Figure 2 and argues that “Figure 2 and a discussion of it in the specification make clear that paying the award is part of the awarding process.” Appellee’s Br. at 37. IGT notes that the last step on the flowchart depicted in Figure 2 is to “wait for input to indicate prize paid and machine unlocked.” ’215 patent Fig. 2. In addition, IGT cites the specification’s discussion of Figure 2, which explains that: In the preferred embodiment, a prize is always awarded to the jackpot feature game, the feature game being used to determine the size of the prize to be awarded (see step 27). The winning machine is then locked up (see step 28) and the controller awaits an indication that the prize has been paid before allowing the machine to be unlocked (see step 29). In some embodiments, the machine will not be locked up in steps 28 and 19, but instead the prize will simply be paid . . . . ’215 patent col. 6 ll. 38-45. We agree with IGT and the district court that the awarding step must be construed as conferring rights from the operator of the game to the player. While Aristocrat does cite evidence suggesting that the “awarding” step is performed by a component within “a network of gaming machines,” that evidence fails to show that awarding means “presenting to the player the monetary amount determined to be due.” Aristocrat’s reliance on the statement in the summary of the invention that “[p]referably, the prize awarded in a jackpot game by the system of the present invention, is a monetary amount the value of which is incremented with each game played ARISTOCRAT TECH v. INTL GAME TECH 15 on each gaming machine or console in the system” is misplaced because that sentence merely describes the character of the prize to be awarded; it does not define what constitutes the awarding step. ’215 patent col. 4 ll. 44-48. Aristocrat’s proposed construction of the “awarding” step is also inconsistent with the surrounding claim language. As noted by the district court and IGT, this claim language shows that “the ‘awarding prize’ step cannot be met simply by displaying [or ‘presenting’] the amount of the prize won” because “this would render the ‘identifying prize’ step superfluous.” Aristocrat, 714 F. Supp. 2d at 996. Aristocrat attempts to differentiate between these two steps by arguing that the “identifying” step involves “indicat[ing] which one of the four named progressive prizes is won” without displaying the amount of the prize, while the “awarding” step displays the amount of the prize. Appellant’s Br. at 34-35. This distinction lacks support in the intrinsic record and is inconsistent with the ordinary meaning of the terms “identifying” and “awarding.” Both steps use identical language to refer to the object of the claimed action: “said one progressive prize from said plurality of progressive prizes that has been won.” Yet, Aristocrat would have this language mean different things depending on the step in which it is used. In the “identifying” step, Aristocrat would have this language mean the “type” of progressive prize won, “e.g., grand, major, minor or mini.” Id. at 34. With respect to the “awarding” step, Aristocrat would have the identical language mean the “amount” of the progressive prize won. The only difference in the language of the two steps, however, is that one begins with “identifying to the player,” while the other begins with “awarding.” Aristocrat does not explain how this distinction supports two distinct meanings of “said one progressive prize from said plurality of progressive prizes that has been won.” 16 ARISTOCRAT TECH v. INTL GAME TECH Nor does the specification support such a distinction. The ’215 patent describes an embodiment in which the “feature jackpot screen and signs display which jackpot has been won,” but this description does not assign a different meaning to the “said one progressive prize” language depending on the step in which it appears. See ’215 patent col. 8 ll. 10-11. Rather, this embodiment demonstrates that Aristocrat’s construction of the “awarding” step would render the identifying step superfluous. Specifically, the above-cited description uses “display” to describe the action which Aristocrat claims is performed during the “identifying” step, i.e., indicating what type of prize was won. And, “display” is the same verb Aristocrat uses to describe the action performed during the “awarding” step. Compare ’215 patent col. 8 ll. 10-11 (“[T]he feature jackpot screens and signs display which jackpot has been won.”) (emphasis added), with Appellant’s Br. at 35 (“The ‘awarding’ step occurs when the ‘monetary amount’ . . . is displayed to the player in a jackpot game . . . .”) (emphasis added). If one were to substitute “display” for both “identifying” and “awarding” in the claims, the only distinction between the steps would be the “to the player” language in the identifying step. The absence of “to the player” in the “awarding” step, however, cannot justify Aristocrat’s proposed dichotomy wherein one step involves displaying the monetary amount of the prize while the other displays the type of prize won. The district court’s—and our—construction does not suffer from the same infirmity. Under the correct construction, “said one progressive prize from said plurality of progressive prizes that has been won” would have the same meaning in both steps, and the “identifying” step is not superfluous. We also reject Aristocrat’s contention that the district court’s construction would result in inconsistent treatment of the patent in different jurisdictions. Gambling may be tolerated to a greater or lesser extent in different ARISTOCRAT TECH v. INTL GAME TECH 17 states but we do not construe the awarding step—or view the district court’s determination—so narrowly as to be dependent on a particular state’s gambling regulations. The critical aspect of the construction of the “awarding” step is the transfer of the right to a prize from the casino operator to the player—a transfer that not even Aristocrat alleges occurs during IGT’s testing of their equipment. That a particular state’s law may complicate a player’s ability to enforce collection of their prize does not affect the operation of the system claimed in the asserted patents or our construction of the “awarding” step. Finally, while we see no reason to resort to consideration of extrinsic evidence, given the clarity of the claim term itself and the support within the specification, we note that our construction is fully consistent with the dictionary definitions put forward by both parties. Aristocrat argues that, in relying on the dictionary definition, the district court imported an extraneous limitation into the claims. But, contrary to this contention, the district court simply used the provided definitions to inform its understanding of the “ordinary and customary” meaning of the word “award.” See Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1322-23 (“Dictionaries or comparable sources are often useful to assist in understanding the commonly understood meaning of words and have been used both by our court and the Supreme Court in claim interpretation.”); see also id. (“[J]udges are free to consult dictionaries . . . at any time in order to better understand the underlying technology and may also rely on dictionary definitions when construing claim terms, so long as the dictionary definition does not contradict any definition found in or ascertained by a reading of the patent documents.”) (internal quotation marks omitted)(citation omitted).