Opinion ID: 750685
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Comparison of the Accused Devices to the Construed Claim

Text: 47 Although Phonometrics alleged infringement by a wide variety of NTI's products, the district judge concluded that only NTI's NORSTAR, VANTAGE 48, and 1/SL-1 (which Phonometrics refers to as MERIDIAN) should be considered in the infringement analysis because only those devices provided call cost features at all. Thus, we limit our review of the district court's infringement analysis to these three devices, and ask ourselves whether any of them substantially perform the in-progress cost display function attributed to the call cost register means. Clearly, they do not. 48 Although all three devices provide cost information at the end of a call, none of them can provide cost information while the call is in progress. Phonometrics in fact concedes as much. Thus, we conclude there can be no equivalent infringement, for one of the functions claimed in the '463 patent is completely absent from the accused devices. See Warner-Jenkinson Co., Inc. v. Hilton Davis Chem. Co., --- U.S. ----, ---- - ----, ----, 117 S.Ct. 1040, 1048-49, 1054, 137 L.Ed.2d 146 (1997); Pennwalt Corp. v. Durand-Wayland, Inc., 833 F.2d 931, 935, 4 USPQ2d 1737, 1740 (Fed.Cir.1987) (in banc). 49 It is clear, therefore, that as a matter of law the accused products cannot infringe the '463 patent. The grant of summary judgment of noninfringement by the district judge was correct, and we therefore uphold it.