Opinion ID: 208672
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: display unit

Text: The district court construed display unit to mean a unit for displaying real-time data provided by the data acquisition unit. Claim Construction Op. at 7. Paragon disagrees. Paragon argued to the district court that a display unit should be construed as an assemblage of inter-related components that unify the function of displaying data from the electronic positioning device and the physiological monitor. Id. at 5. On appeal, Paragon argues that the district court's construction was wrong in three respects, each of which we address in turn. First, Paragon argues that the district court was wrong to construe display unit as displaying data provided by the data acquisition unit. Rather, Paragon argues, the claim language permits the data to be provided by the individual components of the data acquisition unitnamely, the electronic positioning device and the physiological monitor. We agree with Paragon. Claim 1 recites a display unit configured for displaying real-time data provided by said electronic positioning device and said physiological monitor.  '759 patent col.28 ll.3-5 (emphasis added). The claim unambiguously states that the data provided to the display unit comes from both the electronic positioning device and the physiological monitor. Likewise, the specification makes clear that the electronic positioning device and the physiological monitor may be independently in communication with the display unit, to provide data used in the display. See, e.g., id. col.3 ll.3-5 (disclosing a display unit (or component) configured for displaying data provided by the electronic positioning device and the physiological monitor); id. col.7 ll.32-34 (The system of FIG. 1 generally comprises an electronic positioning device 5 and a physiological monitor 6, both of which are in electrical communication with a display unit 7.); id. figs. 1 & 2. Nothing identified by the parties in the prosecution history undermines the conclusion that the display unit displays data provided either independently or over a common transmission path from both the electronic positioning device and the physiological monitor. The district court's construction combined the sources of data by incorrectly substituting data acquisition unit for said electronic positioning device and said physiological monitor. Because we have determined that the data acquisition unit may be made up of multiple structures, it is important to make clear that the data displayed by the display unit may be obtained from the claimed electronic positioning device and the claimed physiological monitor either separately or over a common transmission path. Second, Paragon argues that display unit should not be limited to a single structure, just as data acquisition unit should not be limited to a single structure. Preliminarily, we note that there is nothing in the district court's construction that would appear to limit display unit to a single structure. The district court merely concluded that the display unit must be a unitwhich is the exact claim term. Moreover, there is no reason why the word unit in the term display unit would be limited to a single structure, when the patentee used the word unit in data acquisition unit to refer to one or more structures. We apply a `presumption that the same terms appearing in different portions of the claims should be given the same meaning unless it is clear from the specification and prosecution history that the terms have different meanings at different portions of the claims.' PODS, Inc. v. Porta Stor, Inc., 484 F.3d 1359, 1366 (Fed.Cir.2007) (quoting Fin Control Sys. Pty., Ltd. v. OAM, Inc., 265 F.3d 1311, 1318 (Fed.Cir.2001)); see also, e.g., Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1314 (Because claim terms are normally used consistently throughout the patent, the usage of a term in one claim can often illuminate the meaning of the same term in other claims.). The parties have identified nothing in the claims, the specification, or the prosecution history that would suggest that unit in display unit means anything different from unit in data acquisition unit. The claimed display unit may therefore be multiple structures. Finally, Paragon argues that display unit should not have been construed to require displaying real-time data, because the claim recites merely that the display unit is  configured for displaying real-time data.'759 patent col.28 l.3 (emphasis added). Contrary to Paragon's argument, the district court did not construe display unit to require displaying real-time data. Rather, it construed display unit as a unit for displaying real-time data. Claim Construction Op. at 7 (emphasis added). The district court explained further that `for' denotes a function for which the display unit is configured. Id. Paragon was therefore wrong to characterize the district court's construction as requiring the display unit to actually display[] real-time data, rather than merely be configured to do so. In sum, we modify the district court's construction of display unit and construe display unit as used in the '759 patent as a structure or set of structures, separate from the data acquisition unit, for displaying real-time data provided by both the electronic positioning device and the physiological monitor independently or over a common transmission path.