Opinion ID: 3155486
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “Web Browser Process”

Text: Cioffi argued in its opening brief on appeal that the district court erred by construing “web browser process” at all, rather than maintaining the term’s plain and ordinary meaning. Appellant Br. 27. Cioffi has since conceded, however, that the district court’s construction of “web browser process” as a “process that can access data on websites” is not reversible error. 1 Given this concession, the sole remaining dispute with respect to “web browser process” is whether the district court erred by reading into that limitation a “direct” access requirement. Under the district court’s construction, a “web browser process” does not have to access data on websites without using another “web browser process,” but “must be capable of accessing a website without using another web browser process.” Cioffi, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 123760 at -21 (emphasis added). Simply put, the district court held that the “first web browser process” must be capable of accessing the Internet directly without the assistance of the “second web browser process,” and the “second web browser process” must be capable of accessing the Internet directly without the assistance of the “first web browser process.” 1 See Appellant Reply Br. 2 (“Had the district court stopped with its preliminary construction of ‘web browser process’ to mean a ‘process that can access data on websites’ its error in deciding to construe the term would have been harmless . . . .”); Oral Argument at 1:20-2:03, available at http://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/default .aspx?fl=2015-1194.mp3 (“what’s shown [at  of the Claim Construction Order] is the court’s definition that a ‘web browser process’ is a ‘process that access data on websites.’ That definition, as a practical matter, is acceptable to us.”). 10 CIOFFI v. GOOGLE, INC. Claim construction starts with the claim language. Innova/Pure Water, Inc. v. Safari Water Filtration Sys., Inc., 381 F.3d 1111, 1116 (Fed. Cir. 2004). “Differences among claims can [ ] be a useful guide in understanding the meaning of particular claim terms.” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1314. “[T]he presence of a dependent claim that adds a particular limitation gives rise to a presumption that the limitation in question is not present in the independent claim.” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1314-15 (citing Liebel-Flarsheim Co. v. Medrad, Inc., 358 F.3d 898, 910 (Fed. Cir. 2004)). Cioffi asserts that, under these claim differentiation principles, the term “web browser process” alone cannot be read to require a “direct” access capability. Cioffi first points to independent claim 21 of the ’528 patent, claiming it demonstrates that the “second web browser process” does not need to be capable of directly accessing data on websites without using another web browser. Claim 21 states that the “first web browser process” needs to be “capable of passing data to the second web browser process.” ’528 patent col. 21 ll. 12-14. Thus, this claim implies that the “second web browser” can access data on websites indirectly with assistance from the “first web browser process.” Nothing in the language of claim 21 requires that either the first or the second web browser process have direct access capability; instead, the claim requires only that the second process: (1) execute website data and (2) retrieve data that it executes. Id. In contrast, dependent claim 24 of the ’528 patent requires the “second web browser process” to be “capable of directly exchanging data with the network interface and with the first web browser process.” ’528 patent col. 21 ll. 26-30. 2 2 Claims 21 and 24 of the ‘528 patent are repre- sentative. In its Reply Brief and at oral argument, Cioffi clarifies that the same argument applies to claims 36 and CIOFFI v. GOOGLE, INC. 11 Cioffi asserts that the “directly exchanging data with the network interface” limitation of claim 24 would be superfluous if claim 21 already required direct web access capability. According to Google, Cioffi’s claim differentiation argument fails because the court’s construction requiring that the web browser process have the capability to access data on a website directly does not render claims 21 and 24 of the ’528 patent identical in scope. Claim differentiation principles do not apply here, according to Google, because claim 24 has two additional limitations as compared to claim 21. Dependent claim 24 not only adds a “directly exchanges data with the network interface” limitation, but also a “directly exchanges data with” “the first web browser process” limitation. Id. Thus, according to Google, only the first of these limitations would be subsumed by the court’s construction. We are not persuaded by Google’s arguments. If claim 21 already required a capability for “direct” access to the network, then the language of claim 24, which recites that the “second web browser process is capable of directly exchanging data with the network interface,” would be entirely duplicative. Thus, the language of the claims indicates that only in claim 24 does the second web browser have to have a “direct” access capability. While Google is correct that claim 24 adds another limitation compared to claim 21, that argument does not change the fact that the “directly exchanges data with a network” limitation would be rendered superfluous. See Mformation Techs., Inc. v. Research in Motion Ltd., 764 F.3d 39 of the ’529 patent. See Appellant Reply Br. 5-7; Oral Argument at 3:23-3:59, available at http://oralarguments .cafc.uscourts.gov/default.aspx?fl=2015-1194.mp3. The same argument also applies to claims 21 and 24 of the ’500 patent. 12 CIOFFI v. GOOGLE, INC. 1392, 1399 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (favoring a construction that does not render another limitation “superfluous”). Thus, we find Cioffi’s claim differentiation argument compelling and find that the addition of the direct access capability limitation in claim 24 gives rise to a presumption that claim 21 lacks such a limitation. We do not find, moreover, that anything in the prosecution history overcomes the presumption created by these claim differentiation principles. Google argues that, during prosecution, Cioffi disclaimed a construction of “web browser process” that is broad enough to cover indirect access to website data in order to overcome anticipation by Narin. And Google is correct that, “[a]lthough claim differentiation is a useful analytic tool, it cannot enlarge the meaning of a claim beyond that which is supported by the patent documents, or relieve any claim of limitations imposed by the prosecution history. See, e.g., Retractable Techs., 653 F.3d at 1305 (‘[A]ny presumption created by the doctrine of claim differentiation “will be overcome by a contrary construction dictated by the written description or prosecution history.”’).” Fenner Invs., Ltd. v. Cellco P’ship, 778 F.3d 1320, 1327 (Fed. Cir. 2015). “The doctrine of prosecution disclaimer attaches where an applicant, whether by amendment or by argument, ‘unequivocally disavowed a certain meaning to obtain his patent.’” Schindler Elevator Corp. v. Otis Elevator Co., 593 F.3d 1275, 1285 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (quoting Omega Eng'g, Inc. v. Raytek Corp., 334 F.3d 1314, 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2003)). According to Google, Cioffi would not have been able to distinguish its claims from Narin if its “web browser process” was permitted to indirectly access data on websites through another browser process. Google contends that the examiner rejected Cioffi’s initial, unamended claim for a “browser process” because it would encompass prior art video games in which a renderer (i.e., the first process) relies on a second process to receive interactive CIOFFI v. GOOGLE, INC. 13 network data. ’247 patent col. 14 ll. 28-45. Google argues that Cioffi thus surrendered indirect access to website data when it amended “browser process” to “web browser process” to exclude video game and word processing applications from the prior art. Appellee Br. 32. Cioffi responds that it never suggested in the course of amending “browser process” to “web browser process” that the “web browser process” must be capable of “directly” accessing website data without the assistance of another “web browser process.” Appellant Reply Br. 14. Instead, Cioffi says the key to overcoming Narin was not that the first “web browser process” could “directly” access website data, but, rather, was that the first “web browser process” could access website data at all. In Fenner, on which Google relies, we held that the patent’s specification and prosecution history narrowed the meaning of the term “personal identification number” beyond the construction proffered by the patentee notwithstanding the patentee’s claim differentiation argument. 778 F.3d at 1327. The patentee argued that “personal identification number” should be construed broadly and could be associated with a particular user or a particular device. But the court held that the patentee could not walk away from what it had clearly stated during prosecution—that unlike the prior art, “[t]he present invention, on the other hand, is centered around the mobile user, not the mobile telephone. The user is identified by a personal code.” Id. at 1325. The patentee’s main argument on appeal was that the examiner did not rely on these statements, a point which we found to be irrelevant. Id. Unlike Fenner, the alleged disavowal of claim scope is far from unequivocal in Cioffi’s case. The prosecution history reveals that Cioffi distinguished Narin by arguing that its first browser process was not functionally equivalent to Narin’s “secure” or “trusted” application because 14 CIOFFI v. GOOGLE, INC. the first browser process of the reissue claims was capable of accessing untrusted data from websites, which would constitute “executable code from other sources that may not be trusted.” J.A. 256-57. The examiner recognized that Cioffi drew this distinction with Narin’s “secure” application, but nevertheless rejected Cioffi’s claims because “the features upon which applicant relies, such as the first browser process accessing Internet sites and/or data, are not recited in the rejected claims.” J.A. 286 (¶8). Rather, the examiner felt that the first logical process described in the specification was broad enough to encompass non-web browsers such as a “video game” and a “word processor.” Id. at ¶6. In response to this rejection, Cioffi amended its claims to explicitly state that the “first web browser” needed to be “capable of accessing data on websites.” J.A. 314, 332. Google refers to the following passage from the prosecution history, claiming that it shows that Cioffi disclaimed “indirect” access to website data by the first browser process in order to overcome Narin: As an example application 312 [the secure appli- cation in Narin] may provide some type of web browsing capability to its user, but rather than performing the actual web browsing functions it- self, application 312 may call upon a general- purpose browsing program to perform the web browsing. J.A. 258, 590. See also Oral Argument at 18:01-19:18, available at http://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/defau lt.aspx?fl=2015-1194.mp3. This passage simply confirms that the “secure” process of Narin cannot perform web browsing functions itself, but can call upon the “open” process to perform such functions. Nothing here suggests that the “secure” process thereby gains access to website data. Google further cites this passage: CIOFFI v. GOOGLE, INC. 15 Narin provides a technique for allowing an open or untrusted application to provide untrusted or open features for a secure application that are not directly implemented within the secure applica- tion (or closed application). In accordance therewith, an open or untrusted application is run in a separate auxiliary process from the closed or protected application. . . . The auxiliary process is started by the closed process; the closed process controls the lifetime of the auxiliary process and terminates it when the open features that it pro- vides are no longer necessary. J.A. 588 (emphasis added). Google focuses on the phrase “not directly implemented,” but nothing contained in this passage clarifies that the “untrusted or open features” that the untrusted application provides the secure application include anything more than general web browsing capability, as opposed to website data. And even if such “features” included data from websites, nothing suggests that “are not directly implemented” equates to “are indirectly accessed.” In addition, the third sentence—stating that the untrusted process is started, controlled, and stopped by the “closed process”—also falls short of suggesting that the “closed process” thereby gains access to website data. Finally, the paragraph immediately following that passage affirmatively suggests that whatever the “untrusted features” provided to the “secure” application might include they cannot include “executable code from unknown sources”: Narin teaches away from the closed process [the first browser process] being a browser process. If the application is trusted, running a browser in- proc may subvert the security scheme of the trusted application. If trust is to be maintained, executable code from unknown sources cannot be given access to the address space of the trusted 16 CIOFFI v. GOOGLE, INC. application and therefore cannot be run in pro- cess. J.A. 256-57 (emphasis added). Thus, nothing from the prosecution history constitutes a clear and unmistakable disavowal of “indirect” access. “There is no ‘clear and unmistakable’ disclaimer if a prosecution argument is subject to more than one reasonable interpretation, one of which is consistent with a proffered meaning of the disputed term.” Sandisk Corp. v. Memorex Prods., 415 F.3d 1278, 1287 (Fed. Cir. 2005). Here, Cioffi has offered a reasonable alternative interpretation—that it differentiated Narin by explaining that its first web browser process, unlike Narin’s “secure” process, had access to website data. We find nothing in the prosecution history sufficient to overcome the presumption that “web browser process” alone does not have a “direct” access capability requirement.