Opinion ID: 2757596
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: A method of securing a document stored in a

Text: computer system which is part of a network, com- prising: creating a seal associated with a document which is to be stored or shared within the computer sys- tem or network: placing in the seal information identifying the person requesting that the document be secured (hereinafter the “requestor”); and placing in the seal information identifying who can access the document; thereby allowing one or more designated persons to have access to the document in accordance with the information in the seal. Id. col. 10 ll. 37–49. Claim 1 of the ’249 patent reads as follows: 4 TRISTRATA, INC. v. MICROSOFT CORPORATION 1. A system for securing a document stored in a computer system which is part of a network, com- prising: a storage device storing a seal for association with a document which is to be stored or shared within the computer system or network, said seal com- prising; a) information identifying a requestor requesting that the document be secured; and b) information identifying one or more parties qualified to access the document. ’249 patent col. 10 ll. 29–37. On appeal, TriStrata challenges the district court’s construction of only one term in the ’706 and ’249 patents: “seal.” It appears in every asserted claim. The district court rejected a general-use dictionary definition of “seal” and construed it as “[a] data structure generated by a security server and containing a key or information to generate a key, wherein part or all of the data structure is encrypted and decrypted only by the security server that created it.” TriStrata, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., No. 11-cv03797-JST, 2013 WL 5645984, at –8 (N.D. Cal. Oct. 15, 2013) (“Claim Construction Order”). TriStrata argues that, in construing “seal,” the district court erred because it deviated from the plain and ordinary meaning of the term and imported three features from the specification as claim limitations. Before the district court, TriStrata proposed that “seal” be construed as “[i]nformation in the form of computer bits used by a computer system to secure documents through encryption . . . [which] contains information relating to an encryption/decryption key, such as information from which the key can be derived or the key itself.” TriStrata now urges that “seal” should have been construed in accordance with its general-purpose dictionTRISTRATA, INC. v. MICROSOFT CORPORATION 5 ary definition as “something that secures (as a wax seal on a document).”