Federal Circuit Affirms Judgment of Non-infringement of UTS' Touch-Tone Telephone Tech Patent

Holding:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in this appeal affirmed a district court's summary judgment of non-infringement of a patent relating to non-verbal entry technology that uses “syllabic elements” via a standard touch tone telephone. In particular, the Federal Circuit, citing specification and prosecution history, concluded that the proper construction of "syllabic element" is a one-syllable letter group that either comprises a word or can be combined with other one-syllable letter groups to form a word. Further, the Federal Circuit saw no error in the district court’s claim construction, which clarified that a syllabic element may be as small as a single letter. In the final judgment stipulation, the parties agreed that none of the accused devices relied on a vocabulary of "only syllabic elements," as the term "syllabic elements" was construed” by the district court. Thus, the district court properly entered judgment that the accused devices did not infringe the asserted claims of the patent-at-issue.

Detailed Summary:

The ’112 patent is the patent-at-issue and is entitled “Character Pattern Recognition and Communications Apparatus.” It describes an apparatus and method designed to enable “non-verbal entry” and transmission of a word (or words) using a standard, touch-tone telephone. Opinion, p.2, citing ’112 Patent, Abstract.

Plaintiff-Appellant the Board of Regents of the University of Texas System (“Board of Regents”) appealed a final judgment by the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. Id., citing Bd. of Regents of the Univ. of Tex. Sys. v. BENQ Am. Corp., No. 1:05-CV-181 (W.D. Tex. May 2, 2007). The district court entered final…

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