Opinion ID: 779640
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: repeatedly substantially simultaneously activating

Text: 40 Each of the asserted claims of TDS's '481 and '561 patents includes the limitation, repeatedly substantially simultaneously activating. 1 The district court construed this limitation as follows: 41 The term repeatedly means repeating in its ordinary sense, and that the repetitions be fast enough such that the composite color is actually perceived by the viewer. The term substantially, simultaneously activating means that during some portion of this period (defined as repeatedly), the two separate lights are on at the same time. 42 Tex. Digital Sys. Inc. v. Telegenix, Inc., No. 3:98-CV-1537-BF, slip op. at 11, 2000 WL 1801849 (N.D.Tex. Dec. 6, 2000). 43 Telegenix argues that the district court erred by requiring merely that the lights be on simultaneously, instead of requiring that the activation of each light begin at substantially the same time. According to Telegenix, the district court improperly separated the adverbs substantially simultaneously from the verb it modifies, activating, and thereby failed to require that the light emitting diodes (LEDs) must be activated, or turned on, at the same time. 44 According to TDS, the crucial word in the phrase is repeatedly, which would signal to one of skill in the art that the invention activates light sources repeatedly within the refreshing period or repetition period within which humans do not detect pulses due to the principle of persistence of vision. TDS argues that because one of skill in the art would understand that the claim refers to simultaneously activating light sources of different colors at some time during that critical repetition/refreshing period, and because humans cannot detect changes, pulses, or activations that occur within that period, the question of whether one begins activation of the LEDs at the exact same time or whether one simply ensures that both of the LEDs are on at some time during the repetition period is irrelevant. Thus, according to TDS, one of skill in the art would not interpret the claim term repeatedly substantially simultaneously activating the light sources to limit the starting point of the LED activations. 45 The district court correctly construed the term repeatedly. However, the district court's construction of the overall phrase repeatedly substantially simultaneously activating was in error and ignored the meaning of the term activating. We begin by ascertaining the ordinary meaning to one skilled in the art. See Specialty Composites, 845 F.2d at 986, 6 USPQ2d at 1604. According to a relevant technical dictionary, to activate is [t]o start an operation, usually by application of an appropriate enabling signal. Modern Dictionary of Electronics 20 (6th ed.1984). We presume that the word used in a claim carries this ordinary meaning, but this presumption may be rebutted. See CCS Fitness, 288 F.3d at 1366, 62 USPQ2d at 1662. Here, the intrinsic evidence is entirely consistent with the dictionary definition, and there is nothing in the record to suggest that activating means other than what its dictionary definition would suggest, i.e., starting the operation or turning on. We conclude that the presumption has not been rebutted, and thus the ordinary meaning controls. 46 TDS has argued that activating can mean being on. Certainly, once activated, a lamp might accurately be described as being on. But the claim does not refer to the state of the lamps as being substantially simultaneously activated. The words used, which serve as the focus of the claim construction analysis, call for substantially simultaneously activating the lamps, and the ordinary meaning of that phrase requires that during some portion of the period defined as repeatedly, the two separate lights are turned on at the same or nearly the same time. 47