Opinion ID: 2731747
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Construction of “Instructions”

Text: The district court construed “instructions” as “a statement in a programming language that specifies a function to be performed by a system.” Interval, 2013 WL 792791, at –16. Although the district court’s construction of “instructions” was not dispositive with respect to the final judgment of invalidity and non-infringement, Interval asks us to review that construction now. Specifically, Interval asks us to clarify that “instructions,” in the context of the patents, “may encompass ‘data’” and “need INTERVAL LICENSING LLC v. AOL, INC. 23 not be written ‘in a programming language.’” Appellant’s Br. 61–62. In the interest of judicial economy, we have the discretion to review a non-dispositive claim construction if we believe that the construction may become important on remand. See Deere & Co. v. Bush Hog, LLC, 703 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2012); Advanced Software Design Corp. v. Fiserv, Inc., 641 F.3d 1368, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2011). Because we are vacating the judgment of non- infringement as to claims 15–18 of the ’652 patent, and because those claims include the term “instructions,” we take this opportunity to address the claim construction of that term. During claim construction, Interval argued that “instructions” should be construed to cover “data related to the accomplishment of a function.” J.A. 27. Relying principally on the distinction between “instructions” and “data” in the specification, the district court refused to adopt Interval’s construction. See Interval, 2013 WL 792791, at –16. We share the district court’s reading. Interval notes that the specification refers to certain “instructions” as “functional components,” ’652 patent, 14:49–53, which may be represented by “data.” Id. at 14:53–57 (“Each of the functional components are represented by a set of instructions and/or data. In particular, each of the instructions may include, if appropriate, data related to accomplishment of the functions associated with the set of instructions . . . .”). Although Interval reads the cited portion of the specification as showing that data alone can constitute an “instruction,” we read the specification as maintaining a distinction between “instructions” and “data.” An instruction “may . . . include data,” not consist of data; the instruction is not the data itself. As the district court observed, “[i]f ‘data’ is a type of ‘instructions,’ then the phrase ‘instructions and/or data’ would not make sense.” Interval, 2013 WL 792791, at 24 INTERVAL LICENSING LLC v. AOL, INC. . Moreover, the district court’s reading is consistent with extrinsic evidence suggesting that the distinction between “instructions” and “data” is widely recognized in the field of art. See J.A. 845 (“The distinction between program (instructions) and data is a fundamental one in computing.” (quoting Oxford Dictionary of Computing)). For these reasons, we decline Interval’s invitation to call into question the distinction between “instructions” and “data” in the district court’s construction. As for Interval’s concerns regarding the “in a programming language” phrase, we find that a modification to the construction is necessary. Although the district court carefully explained why the intrinsic evidence supported the exclusion of the word “data” from its construction, the court offered no direct explanation for its inclusion of the “in a programming language” limitation. The patents’ specification does not indicate that instructions must take the form of programming language statements. The source of that limitation is the IEEE Standard Dictionary of Electrical and Electronics Terms (6th ed. 1996) (“IEEE Dictionary”), which the Defendants relied on for their proposed construction. See J.A. 419, 484. The IEEE Dictionary includes five different definitions of “computer instruction,” with two definitions specifically directed towards “software” computer instructions. The Defendants based their construction on one of those two definitions: “A statement in a programming language, specifying an operation to be performed by a computer and the addresses or values of the associated operands; for example, Move A to B.” Id. at 484. The second definition, which the Defendants did not reference, reads: “Loosely, any executable statement in a computer program.” Id. We have recognized that technical dictionaries “can assist the court in determining the meaning of particular INTERVAL LICENSING LLC v. AOL, INC. 25 terminology to those of skill in the art of the invention.” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1318. At the same time, we have cautioned against relying on dictionary definitions at the expense of a fair reading of the claims, which must be understood in light of the specification. See id. at 1321– 22. Here, considering that the patents’ specification does not use “instructions” in relation to “programming language statements,” we find that the broader dictionary definition (“any executable statement in a computer program”) is preferable. Moreover, we share Interval’s concern that the “in a programming language” limitation will breed unnecessary uncertainty about whether “instructions” may take the form of object code. As Interval notes, one could argue that object code—which may consist of strings of 1’s and 0’s—is not a “programming language.” The IEEE Dictionary, however, defines “object code” as “[c]omputer instructions and data definitions in a form output by an assembler or a compiler.” In sum, the extrinsic source on which the district court relied suggests a broader construction of “instructions” than the court adopted. We conclude that a construction without the “in a programming language” phrase is both simpler and more accurate. Accordingly, we adopt the following construction: “a statement that specifies a function to be performed by a system.”