Court Opinion

ID: 9494378
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 15:36:46.89123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:56:23.126900
License: Public Domain

MAYER, Chief Judge,
dissenting.
I would reverse. The court errs by reading the claim term “or” exclusively, while the district court appropriately read it inclusively when construing the claim. This is not a case of a species anticipating a genus, or of a combination claimed in the alternative. Instead, the Brown patent teaches an apparatus with additional functionality not disclosed in the allegedly anticipating TOCS patent.
Claim 16 of the Brown patent includes the following limitations:
at least one database file stored in the memory containing records with year-date data with years being represented by at least one of .two-digit, three-digit, or four-digit year-date data representations;
and
a mechanism for converting the year-date data representations in the database file to a two-digit year-date data representation.
'824 patent, col. 18,11. 59-65.
The “mechanism for converting: the year-date data representations in the database file” refers to “the” antecedent year-date data representations in the prior limitation. Such data representations may consist of only two-digit dates, only three-digit dates, only four-digit dates, or any combination or sub-combination thereof. Therefore, although the data may vary, the mechanism always must have the capacity to convert all of the possible data sets into two-digit year-date data representations. Moreover, the “mechanism for converting ...” limitation is stated in means-plus-function format pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 112, ¶ 6, and must be interpreted by reference to the structure or acts disclosed in the specification. The preferred embodiment in the specification discloses a process for converting all such possible year-date combinations to two-digit representations, before further processing to offset the system clock. See '824 patent, col. 12, I. 5-col. 13, 1. 7. The presence of this disclosure mandates the construction of the “mechanism for converting ...” limitation as one that requires the capacity to process two-, three- and four-digit dates, even if the full capacity of the device is not always utilized.
To invalidate a patent by anticipation, a prior art reference needs to disclose each and every limitation of the claim. Standard Havens Prods., Inc. v. Gencor Indus., Inc., 953 F.2d 1360, 1369, 21 USPQ2d 1321, 1328 (Fed.Cir.1991). The TOCS patent teaches a mechanism for processing two-digit year-date representations by using an offset date other than an actual date. However, it does not disclose a mechanism for converting three- or four-digit year-date representations to two-digit year-date representations for use with the offset clock. See, e.g., '836 patent, col. 9, II. 50-64, col. 10, 11. 38-67, col. 2, 11. 42-44. Although its specification states that “... all date data is preferably converted prior to processing by the application so that the years are confined to a single century,” id. at col. 4, 11. 18-20, it discloses no acts or structure to perform this conversion, and *1354makes no mention of reducing three- or four-digit dates to two-digit dates. Therefore, the TOCS patent does not anticipate because it does disclose the “mechanism for converting the year-date data representations” limitation.
Similarly, the test for literal infringement under § 112, ¶ 6 is first, whether the accused device performs an identical function to the one recited in the claim, and, if so, whether the accused device uses the same structure, materials or acts found in the specification, or their equivalents. Gen. Elec. Co. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd., 179 F.3d 1350, 1355, 50 USPQ2d 1910, 1913-14 (Fed.Cir.1999). A system made in accordance with the TOCS patent would not literally infringe the '824 patent because it would not perform the function of converting three-digit and four-digit date representations. Therefore, because it would not infringe if later, it cannot anticipate though earlier.
Moreover, the burden of proving a patent anticipated is particularly high when the prior art was before the examiner during prosecution of the application. Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Bausch & Lomb Inc., 909 F.2d 1464, 1467, 15 USPQ2d 1525, 1527 (Fed.Cir.1990). Brown cited the TOCS patent as a reference to the examiner in his application for his '824 patent. Had the examiner believed that the Brown patent was claimed in the alternative, he would be expected to have imposed a restriction requirement, or rejected the application. Instead, he allowed the claims, which use the term “or” in a practical common-sense way of claiming the single invention of an apparatus with multiple inter-related functions. This is not to say that the TOCS patent might not inherently disclose the missing limitation in the Brown patent, or that the Brown patent might not be held invalid as obvious, or even that Brown might be unpatentable as not “useful.” But neither the parties nor the district court put those questions before us today.