Court Opinion

ID: 9493861
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:21:24.132174+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:04.302890
License: Public Domain

CLEVENGER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority holds that the district court correctly interpreted claim 1 to require a local server computer that has a limited database of aliases and that requests updates from a central registry computer. The majority also agrees with the district court’s decision that the accused RealNames system lacks those functions.
I respectfully disagree with the majority. It certainly is true that dependent claims of the '906 patent, such as claim 6, define a local server computer that has a limited database of aliases and that requests updates from a central registry computer. Netword does not assert those claims against the RealNames system. The question before us is whether the admitted limitations found in the dependent claims are also present in claim 1, quoted in the majority opinion, which on its face does not restrict a local server computer to a limited database of aliases, and which does not specify the manner in which a local server receives the database of aliases that it maintains.
According to claim 1, the claimed system must include a central registry computer and at least one local server computer “wherein said aliases are maintained.” Nothing in the claim language specifies that a local server computer cannot maintain the same database as is maintained by central registry computer, and nothing in the claim language precludes a local server computer from receiving its database of abases by periodic communication from the central registry computer. In short, the mandatory limitations imposed on a local server computer in claim 1 by the district court and by the majority — a limited database of aliases and maintenance of aliases by the local server computer as a result of requests made by it to the central registry computer-are not present in the claim.
Those two mandatory limitations are also not present in the written description, which only states that the mechanisms for keeping the local server up to date “may include” (not must include) requests made by the local server to the central registry computer. The file history of the patent clearly indicates that the update function can also be provided without such “bottom up” requests, by using “top-down” communication: the applicant describes the claimed system as “a centralized, top-down hierarchy of maintaining the alias database.” And the specification describes the same manner of updating the database, ie., “push down” of information by periodic updating from the central registry to other computers in the system that meet the definition of a local server computer. See column 6, lines 15-20; column 8, lines 1-6.
At another point in the file history, the same point is made, as well as the point that the local server computer may maintain the entire database that is maintained by the central registry computer. That part of the file history, included by the appbcant as a “General Comment,” reads:
The system is maintained and operated using a single master database, and various distributed copies of all or part of that database which can be accessed by clients. The databases at various levels are interactively updated by obtaining changes from the master database. These changes can be obtained both on a peñodic basis, and whenever the requested alias name is not located in a client’s local database.
(Emphasis supplied.)
These features of the specification and of the file history are not credited by either the district court or the majority. I have no quibble with the fact that the file *1358history and the specification disclose a local server computer that has a limited database of aliases and that achieves its updating function by making requests of the central registry computer. Unlike the majority and the district court, I would treat those disclosures as explanations of the dependent claims to which they clearly relate. In short, I detect nothing in the specification or the file history that requires a local server computer in claim 1 to have a limited database of aliases that is updated only by requests made to the central registry computer. Indeed, the file history and the specification, as demonstrated above, actually teach that claim 1 does not carry the limitations imposed on it by the district court and the majority.
Because the correct interpretation of local server computer in claim 1 includes a local server that maintains a database equal to that of the central registry computer and that achieves its updating by periodic updates pushed down to the local server by the central registry computer, the summary judgment of noninfringement must be reversed, insofar as it relates to the question of whether the accused system meets the local server computer limitation of claim 1.
By affirming the district court on the infringement issue relating to the local server computer limitation, the majority did not reach the question of whether the district court also erred in deciding that the “client computer” limitation of claim 1 is also not met by the accused RealNames system. I think the district court erred in its interpretation of “client computer,” and that under the correct interpretation, the judgment of noninfringement must be reversed.
Claim 1 specifies that a client computer must be (1) directed by software components and linked to a local server computer, (2) capable of denoting resources using aliases that are unique throughout the network of server and client computers, and (3) able to retrieve information corresponding to the aliases used to denote desired resources. That such is the correct definition of a client computer is proven by the specification, wherein the paten-tee expressly defined the term as stated above. See column 5, lines 59-60; column 6, lines 54-56.
The district court erred by adding further limitations to the definition of a client computer. In particular, the district court added the limitations that a client computer must be able to (1) cache information and search the cache on its own machine (in order to check its own cache of alias records before seeking access to a local server computer), (2) download and store the full alias record (as opposed to downloading the bare alias), and (3) retrieve information corresponding to an alias (as opposed to retrieval of the bare alias).
There is no reason to add these three limitations to the definition of a client computer. The specification makes quite clear that those added limitations are merely permissive, that is to say, they may or may not be associated with the client computer that is clearly defined in the specification. See column 8, lines 25-45. The reference to a “caching” function in a client computer made in a pre-filing invention disclosure meeting at the patent office also describes the functions as permissive. The “caching” function of the client computer is indeed claimed in dependent claim 7, and the references to that function in the specification are properly limited to the express claim of the function in claim 7. As' with the errors made by the district court in coping with the local server computer limitation in claim 1, so too did the district court err when it analyzed the client computer limitation, for purposes of interpre-’ tation and infringement by the accused system.
The district court found noninfringement of the client computer limitation be*1359cause the client computer in the accused system does not perform the functions incorrectly added to the meaning of client computer. Once those incorrect functional limitations are removed from the definition of client computer, it is clear that the district court’s judgment of noninfringement must be reversed.