Court Opinion

ID: 9374522
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-23 16:00:44.73406+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:51.489589
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1098    Document: 42    Page: 1   Filed: 02/23/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

        ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC,
                Plaintiff-Appellant

                            v.

                    GOVISION, LLC
                      Defendant

 SHENZHEN ABSEN OPTOELECTRONIC CO., LTD.,
                ABSEN, INC.,
             Defendants-Appellees
            ______________________

                       2022-1098
                 ______________________

     Appeal from the United States District Court for the
 Eastern District of Texas in No. 2:18-cv-00100-JRG-RSP,
 2:18-cv-00112-JRG-RSP, Chief Judge J. Rodney Gilstrap.
                  ______________________

                Decided: February 23, 2023
                 ______________________

    ALFRED ROSS FABRICANT, Fabricant LLP, Rye, NY, ar-
 gued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by PETER
 LAMBRIANAKOS, JOSEPH M. MERCADANTE, VINCENT J.
 RUBINO, III.

    KEVIN PAUL MARTIN, Goodwin Procter LLP, Boston,
Case: 22-1098    Document: 42      Page: 2    Filed: 02/23/2023

 2           ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC    v. GOVISION, LLC

 MA, argued for defendants-appellees. Also represented by
 JORDAN BOCK, SRIKANTH K. REDDY; NAOMI BIRBACH, New
 York, NY; PATRICK MCCARTHY, Washington, DC.
                 ______________________

     Before PROST, TARANTO, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
 PROST, Circuit Judge.
      Ultravision Technologies, LLC (“Ultravision”) sued
 Shenzhen Absen Optoelectronic Co., Ltd. and Absen Inc.
 (collectively, “Absen” or “Appellees”) for patent infringe-
 ment. After claim construction, Ultravision stipulated to
 noninfringement of claims 14 and 15 of U.S. Patent
 No. 9,047,791 (“the ’791 patent”) and claims 15 and 17 of
 U.S. Patent No. 9,666,105 (“the ’105 patent”). 1 A jury later
 returned a verdict of noninfringement and invalidity of
 claim 9 of U.S. Patent No. 9,916,782 (“the ’782 patent”).
 The district court subsequently denied Ultravision’s mo-
 tion for a new trial based on the ’782 patent claim construc-
 tion. Ultravision appeals, arguing that the stipulated
 judgment and the judgment entered based on the jury’s
 verdict should be overturned based on two claim-construc-
 tion errors. Because the district court correctly construed
 both claim terms, we affirm the final judgment.

     1 Ultravision also stipulated to noninfringement of
 claims 12–13 and 19–20 of the ’791 patent, J.A. 102, but
 those claims are no longer at issue here because we af-
 firmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (“Board”) un-
 patentability determinations on those claims. Ultravision
 Techs., LLC v. Glux Visual Effects Tech (Shenzhen) Co.,
 No. 2022-1344, 2023 WL 177691, at *1 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 13,
 2023).
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 ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC     v. GOVISION, LLC          3

                        BACKGROUND
                               I
     Claim 9 of the ’782 patent, which depends from claim
 1, was the only claim asserted at trial and is therefore the
 only claim at issue here. However, the only challenged
 term, “waterproof,” appears in claim 1. Claim 1 of the
 ’782 patent recites in relevant part: “wherein the modular
 display panel is sealed to be waterproof.” ’782 patent claim
 1 (emphasis added).
     At the district court, Ultravision argued that “water-
 proof” means “preventing water from entering the interior
 of the panel when exposed to weather,” and Absen argued
 that it means “preventing water from entering (the panel).”
 Ultravision Techs., LLC v. Govision LLC, No. 2:18-cv-
 00100-JRG-RSP, 2020 WL 12570811, at *9–10 (E.D. Tex.
 Sept. 30, 2020) (“Claim Construction Order”). Absen also
 argued that Ultravision’s construction rendered the claims
 indefinite. Id. After considering the parties’ arguments,
 the district court ultimately construed “waterproof” as “in-
 gress protection (IP) rating of IP 65 or higher.” Id. at *12.
      Under this “rating of IP 65 or higher” construction, the
 jury returned a verdict of noninfringement and invalidity
 of claim 9. J.A. 5137–38. The district court entered judg-
 ment according to the verdict, J.A. 101–02, and denied Ul-
 travision’s motion for a new trial, J.A. 100.
                              II
      The ’791 and ’105 patents, also related to display mod-
 ules, claim modification kits to convert existing signs into
 electronic signs. Ultravision stipulated to noninfringement
 of claims 14 and 15 of the ’791 patent and claims 15 and 17
 of the ’105 patent based on the construction of “display
 module.”      Ultravision agrees that claim 12 of the
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 4           ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC    v. GOVISION, LLC

 ’791 patent, which claims 14 and 15 depend from, is exem-
 plary for purposes of this claim construction dispute 2:
     A modification kit for converting an existing sign-
     age mounting structure to an electronic sign com-
     prising:
     a plurality of display modules;
     a plurality of sign sections each having a front por-
     tion and a rear portion, the front portion defining
     at least two vertical columns of bays that span and
     define a height of the sign, each bay configured to
     receive one of the display modules, the rear portion
     configured to be attached to a beam surface of the
     existing signage structure to allow most of a rear
     surface of the rear portion to be exposed for servic-
     ing; and
     a plurality of power routing systems each including
     at least one node associated with each sign section
     with a plurality of individual power extensions
     each extending from one node to one of the bays.
 ’791 patent claim 12 (emphasis added).
     Ultravision argued to the district court that the claim
 term “display module” should be given its plain and ordi-
 nary meaning. Claim Construction Order, 2020 WL
 12570811, at *31. Absen argued that it should be con-
 strued to mean “a sealed display module having a pair of
 LED panels operatively coupled to a daughter board.” Id.
 The district court adopted Absen’s construction in part,
 construing the term to mean “module having a pair of LED

     2   We cite to the ’791 patent throughout because Ul-
 travision has not separately argued or suggested that any
 distinction from the ’105 patent impacts the construction of
 “display module.”
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 ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC       v. GOVISION, LLC          5

 display panels operatively coupled to a daughter board.”
 Id. at *33
     Ultravision stipulated to noninfringement of claims 14
 and 15 of the ’791 patent and claims 15 and 17 of the
 ’105 patent under this construction of “display module”
 and, after the jury trial on the ’782 patent, the district court
 entered final judgment accordingly. J.A. 102.
                               III
     Ultravision appeals the final judgment as it relates to
 the ’791, ’105, and ’782 patents. 3 It bases this challenge
 only on its contention that the claim constructions of “wa-
 terproof” and “display modules” were erroneous. Ul-
 travision also challenges the denial of its motion for a new
 trial on the ’782 patent. That challenge rests on its claim
 construction argument and its position that the district
 court erroneously found that Ultravision was not preju-
 diced by the construction because it concluded that the re-
 sult would have been the same under Ultravision’s
 proposed construction.
     We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).
                          DISCUSSION
     In general, claim terms are construed based on their
 ordinary meaning to a person of skill in the art who has
 read the entire specification and all the claims. Phillips v.

     3   Ultravision also appealed the “waterproof” con-
 struction as it related to claim 22 of U.S. Patent
 No. 9,978,294—the jury also returned a verdict of nonin-
 fringement and invalidity on that claim—but we have since
 affirmed the Board’s determination that claim 22 of the
 ’294 patent is unpatentable. See Ultravision Techs., LLC
 v. Glux Visual Effects Tech (Shenzhen) Co., No. 2022-1342,
 2023 WL 177689, at *1 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 13, 2023). Thus, that
 aspect of the appeal is now moot.
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 6           ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC    v. GOVISION, LLC

 AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc).
 The specification may also indicate, either expressly or by
 implication, that the patentee uniquely defined a claim
 term. Trs. of Columbia Univ. v. Symantec Corp., 811 F.3d
 1359, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2016). Further, the specification’s
 emphasis of a particular feature’s importance to the inven-
 tion can indicate “what the patentee had claimed and dis-
 claimed.” See SafeTCare Mfg., Inc. v. Tele-Made, Inc., 497
 F.3d 1262, 1269–70 (Fed. Cir. 2007). In addition, the pros-
 ecution history sheds light on a term’s meaning because it
 “provides evidence of how the PTO and the inventor under-
 stood the patent.” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1317. “We review
 claim construction based on intrinsic evidence de novo and
 review any findings of fact regarding extrinsic evidence for
 clear error.” SpeedTrack, Inc. v. Amazon.com, 998 F.3d
 1373, 1378 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (citing Teva Pharms. USA, Inc.
 v. Sandoz, Inc., 574 U.S. 318, 331–32 (2015)).
                               I
      First, we address the construction of “waterproof” as it
 relates to claim 9 of the ’782 patent. For the reasons below,
 we agree with the district court’s construction: “ingress
 protection (IP) rating of IP 65 or higher.” As a result, we
 affirm the final judgment of invalidity and noninfringe-
 ment of claim 9. We likewise affirm the district court’s de-
 nial of Ultravision’s motion for a new trial. Because the
 claim construction is correct, we need not (and do not)
 reach the issue of whether the district court was correct
 that Ultravision was not prejudiced by the construction.
      The ’782 specification uses “waterproof” as a term of
 degree. See, e.g., ’782 patent col. 4 ll. 65–66 (“These panels
 are completely waterproof against submersion in up to 3
 feet of water.” (emphasis added)). And it repeatedly uses
 ingress protection (“IP”) ratings to describe the degree of
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 ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC      v. GOVISION, LLC             7

 protection from water. 4 ’782 patent col. 7 ll. 42–52 (“In the
 present example, the housing 220 is sealed to prevent wa-
 ter from entering the housing. For example, the housing
 220 may be sealed to have an ingress protection (IP) rating
 such as IP 67, which defines a level of protection against
 both solid particles and liquid. . . . In other embodiments,
 the housing may be sealed to have an IP rating of IP 65 or
 higher, e.g. IP 65, IP 66, IP 67, or IP 68.”); id. at col 4 l. 61–
 col. 5 l. 3 (“In certain embodiments, the display is IP 67
 rated and therefore waterproof and corrosion re-
 sistant. . . . In lower-cost embodiments where weather-
 proofing is not as significant, the panels can have an IP 65
 or IP 66 rating.”). An IP rating of 65 is the lowest value
 discussed as providing protection from water; it is the low-
 est IP rating mentioned in the specification.
     The district court based its construction on an evalua-
 tion of the intrinsic record and relevant prosecution his-
 tory. Further, the court reasoned that Ultravision’s
 proposed construction, preventing water from entering the
 interior of the panel when exposed to weather, “would
 change the claim requirement of ‘waterproof’ to ‘weather-
 proof’” and it “would not provide any bounds for the scope
 of the claims.” Claim Construction Order, 2020 WL
 12570811, at *11. As for Absen’s proposed construction,
 preventing water from entering (the panel), the district
 court rejected it because it “require[s] levels of protection
 against every possible condition, including conditions that
 the panels would never be expected to operate in,” which
 was inconsistent with the specification’s description of “dif-
 ferent levels of waterproof protection.” Id. at *12.
     The intrinsic record supports the district court’s con-
 struction. As noted above, the specification discusses

     4   Everyone agrees that IP ratings are standard rat-
 ings that reflect resistance to water and dust. Appellant’s
 Br. 14 n.5; Appellees’ Br. 7.
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 8            ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC    v. GOVISION, LLC

 “waterproof” as varying in degree and consistently uses IP
 ratings of 65 or higher to describe the level of protection
 from water. Further, during prosecution the patentee ex-
 plained that the clause “when the panel is immersed in wa-
 ter,” which appeared in a subsequently amended claim,
 “describes the degree to which the panel is ‘sealed to be wa-
 terproof.’” J.A. 3502. That clause was then amended to
 “the panel compris[es] an ingress protection (IP) rating of
 IP 67 or IP 68”—indicating that the patentee also under-
 stood “waterproof” to vary in degree and that IP ratings de-
 scribe that degree. J.A. 3502–03. Thus, the construction
 of “waterproof” as “ingress protection (IP) rating of IP 65 or
 higher” appropriately captures the term’s meaning as used
 in the ’782 patent.
     Ultravision’s arguments to the contrary are unpersua-
 sive.
      First, Ultravision relies on the doctrine of claim differ-
 entiation to argue that claim 6’s recitation of “wherein the
 modular display panel comprises an ingress protection (IP)
 rating of IP 65, IP 66, IP 67, or IP 68” precludes a construc-
 tion where IP ratings are present in the independent claim
 by virtue of the “waterproof” construction. But the con-
 struction does not render the scope of claim 6 and the scope
 of claim 1 equivalent. Instead, the construction of IP 65 or
 higher also includes an IP rating of 69, a value not claimed
 in claim 6. Thus, claim 6 has a narrower scope than claim
 1 even under the challenged construction. Since the claim
 construction does not generate any redundancy, the doc-
 trine of claim differentiation does not apply here. See Ap-
 ple, Inc. v. Ameranth, Inc., 842 F.3d 1229, 1238 (Fed. Cir.
 2016) (“This court has declined to apply the doctrine of
 claim differentiation where the claims are not otherwise
 identical in scope.” (cleaned up)).
     We are further unpersuaded by Ultravision’s related
 argument that claim differentiation applies because IP 69
 can’t be included in the construction of “waterproof.” The
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 ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC    v. GOVISION, LLC            9

 specification’s failure, however, to explicitly call out an IP
 rating of 69 here doesn’t serve to exclude it from the mean-
 ing of “waterproof.” The specification emphasizes the de-
 sirability of protecting displays from water and an IP
 rating of 69 would provide protection from water under
 more conditions.
      Regardless, “[c]laim differentiation is a guide, not a
 rigid rule,” and does not alter a construction otherwise
 compelled by the intrinsic record. Wi-LAN USA, Inc. v. Ap-
 ple Inc., 830 F.3d 1374, 1391 (Fed. Cir. 2016). As discussed
 above, the intrinsic record here indicates that the scope the
 patentee ascribed to the relative term “waterproof” is an IP
 rating of 65 or higher. That the patentee also decided to
 specifically claim a particular subset of IP values—i.e., in-
 dicate the degree of waterproofing with more particular-
 ity—in claim 6 does not overcome that conclusion in these
 circumstances.
     Next, Ultravision argues that the construction is incor-
 rect because “waterproof” is never expressly defined as “IP
 65 or higher” in the specification. Appellant’s Br. 30–32.
 This argument misses the point: “waterproof” must be con-
 strued based on consideration of the claims and the speci-
 fication as a whole. The specification did not need to, itself,
 provide an explicit definition; the context and use of “wa-
 terproof” in the claims and specification overall support the
 construction reached. See Trs. of Columbia Univ., 811 F.3d
 at 1363 (rejecting an argument that explicit redefinition is
 required and noting that “[t]he only meaning that matters
 in claim construction is the meaning in the context of the
 patent.”).
     Ultravision’s argument that the district court improp-
 erly relied on the prosecution history because the pa-
 tentee’s statements don’t amount to clear and
 unmistakable disclaimer is similarly unpersuasive. Appel-
 lant’s Br. 32. The prosecution history is relevant for more
 than an evaluation of disclaimer—it provides additional
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 10             ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC   v. GOVISION, LLC

 context for evaluating how the term would be understood
 and how it was used in the patent. Iridescent Networks,
 Inc. v. AT&T Mobility, LLC, 933 F.3d 1345, 1353 (Fed. Cir.
 2019) (rejecting a similar argument when construing “high
 quality of service connection” because “where there is no
 clear ordinary and customary meaning of a coined term of
 degree, we may look to the prosecution history for guidance
 without having to first find a clear and unmistakable disa-
 vowal.”). Here, the patentee’s discussion of “the degree to
 which the panel is ‘sealed to be waterproof’” during prose-
 cution, J.A. 3502, only bolsters the district court’s conclu-
 sion about the meaning of “waterproof” based on the
 specification itself.
      Finally, we need not look to extrinsic evidence here be-
 cause the intrinsic record well supports the claim construc-
 tion of “waterproof.” Seabed Geosolutions (US) Inc. v.
 Magseis FF LLC, 8 F.4th 1285, 1287 (Fed. Cir. 2021) (“If
 the meaning of a claim term is clear from the intrinsic evi-
 dence, there is no reason to resort to extrinsic evidence.”).
 However, even if we were to look to extrinsic evidence for
 additional context, Ultravision’s expert testimony would
 not counsel against the construction reached. As the dis-
 trict court pointed out, Ultravision’s expert also acknowl-
 edged that “[o]ne useful reference that a person of ordinary
 skill in the art would be familiar with when dealing with
 waterproofing is the Ingress Protection (IP) standard.”
 Claim Construction Order, 2020 WL 12570811, at *10
 (quoting J.A. 1986).
     Thus, we affirm the construction of “waterproof” as “in-
 gress protection (IP) rating of IP 65 or higher.” And, be-
 cause Ultravision challenges the final judgment of
 invalidity and noninfringement of claim 9 of the ’782 patent
 based only on this construction, we affirm the judgment.
                               II
     Ultravision also challenges the district court’s con-
 struction of “display module”—it stipulated to
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 ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC     v. GOVISION, LLC            11

 noninfringement of claims 14 and 15 of the ’791 patent and
 claims 15 and 17 of the ’105 based on the construction. We
 also reject this challenge because we agree with the district
 court’s construction of “display module” as “module having
 a pair of LED display panels operatively coupled to a
 daughter board.”
      The court based its construction on its conclusion that
 “the patentee indicated that the daughter board and pair
 of LED panels are ‘important and unique feature of the pre-
 sent invention,’” Claim Construction Order, 2020 WL
 12570811, at *33 (citing ’791 patent col. 34 ll. 41–63), and
 that “every disclosed embodiment includes a pair of LED
 panels operatively coupled to a daughter board,” id. (citing
 ’791 patent col. 25 ll. 30–33, col. 27 ll. 1–7, col. 38 ll. 9–14,
 col. 43 ll. 62–67).
      We agree with the district court’s evaluation. The spec-
 ification describes that a display module includes a single
 daughter board connected to two display panels. Specifi-
 cally, it explains that “each display module 14 also includes
 a centrally disposed daughter board 20 which handles the
 transfer of data between each of the display panel assem-
 blies 14L and 14R respectively.” ’791 patent col. 34
 ll. 41–45; see also id. at col. 25 ll. 30–33 (“Each individual
 display panel module . . . includes dual LED display pan-
 els.” (emphasis added)), col. 27 ll. 2–6 (“[W]ith the aid of an
 interconnecting daughter board . . . a significant reduction
 is achieved as only a single DC/DC converter is utilized to
 power the two optimum sized LED panels . . . .” (emphasis
 added)), col. 43 ll. 63–66 (describing the figure as showing
 that “display module 14 generally includes the daughter
 board 20 and its associated LED display panel boards 14L
 and 14R respectively”). Additionally, the specification
 states that this arrangement of a single daughter board
 connected to two LED panels “is an important and unique
 feature of the present invention.” Id. at col. 34 ll. 50–52.
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 12             ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC   v. GOVISION, LLC

     Where the specification repeatedly emphasizes a fea-
 ture as unique or distinguishing, we have found that indic-
 ative of “what the patentee has claimed and disclaimed.”
 SafeTCare Mfg., 497 F.3d at 1270. As discussed above, the
 specification can impart meaning explicitly or implicitly.
 Here, the specification is clear that the invention’s “display
 module” has a pair of LED display panels operatively cou-
 pled to a daughter board. Thus, the disclosure indicates
 that a single LED panel coupled to the daughter board falls
 outside the claimed scope of “display module.”
      Ultravision is incorrect that the specification described
 the center mounting arrangement as unique instead of the
 pair of LED panels coupled to a daughter board. See Ap-
 pellant’s Br. 51. They are the same feature. The “im-
 portant and unique” center mounting arrangement is
 described as involving a pair of LED displays with the
 daughter board located centrally between them; the speci-
 fication explains that the arrangement is beneficial be-
 cause it enables two LED panels to be powered and
 controlled by a single daughter board. See ’791 patent
 col. 34 ll. 41–58.
     Further, Ultravision primarily relies on a single sen-
 tence in the specification to argue that the district court’s
 construction improperly excludes a disclosed single-panel
 embodiment. But the specification’s statement that “[i]n
 one embodiment, the at least one LED board includes two
 LED boards disposed in a side-by-side arrangement along
 the X-axis,” ’791 patent col. 2 ll. 27–29, does not indicate
 that the claimed scope of “display module” captures an em-
 bodiment with a single LED panel coupled to a daughter
 board. First, it is not clear that “one LED board” is even
 synonymous with one LED panel. Further, the description
 of a single embodiment where a first aspect of the display
 module comprises “at least one LED board” (which clearly
 includes two LED boards) is not enough to overcome the
 specification’s description of a pair of LED panels coupled
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 ULTRAVISION TECHNOLOGIES, LLC   v. GOVISION, LLC         13

 to a daughter board as important and unique to the inven-
 tion.
     In sum, we affirm the district court’s construction of
 “display module” and affirm the stipulated judgment of
 noninfringement of claims 14 and 15 of the ’791 patent and
 claims 15 and 17 of the ’105 patent under that construction.
                        CONCLUSION
     We have considered Ultravision’s other arguments and
 find them unpersuasive. Because the district court cor-
 rectly construed “waterproof” and “display module,” we af-
 firm.
                        AFFIRMED