IP Law Daily, PATENT—Fed. Cir.: Non-infringement judgment in video game hardware dispute affirmed, (Feb 20, 2026)

By Carolin Dennis, B.Sc., LL.B., LL.M.

The patentee’s infringement analysis failed to meet its burden in describing the “way” the “encoding means” structure in the ’730 patent performs its function.

A district court did not err in granting summary judgment of non-infringement because the patentee of computer communication equipment presented a deficient infringement case, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has ruled. The Federal Circuit determined that the patentee and its expert failed to account for many of the elements in block 34 in their infringement analysis (Genuine Enabling Technology LLC v. Sony Group Corp., No. 24-1686 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 19, 2026)).

Genuine Enabling Technology, LLC (GET) was the owner of U.S. Patent No. 6,219,730 (’730 patent), which claimed “an apparatus for sending multiple streams of information to a computer over a single communication link.” GET brought suit for infringement against Sony Corporation and Sony Interactive Entertainment, LLC (collectively, Sony), alleging that Sony’s video game consoles and controllers infringed the ’730 patent by sending multiple streams of information such as button presses, motion sensor data, and voice from the controllers to the consoles over a single wireless communication link. Sony moved for summary judgment of non-infringement, which was granted in its favor.

The district court determined that GET raised no genuine issue of material fact as to whether Sony’s accused products PlayStation 3 and 4 controllers and consoles infringe claims 10, 14, 16–18, and 21–23 of the ’730 patent. The district court had previously excluded, after a Daubert hearing, GET’s expert Dr. Fernald’s report on the issue of whether a Bluetooth module in the accused products performed synchronization of data in substantially the same way as a part of the asserted patent. The district court determined that the same principles that warranted the partial exclusion of Dr. Fernald’s equivalency analysis compel the conclusion that GET lacked sufficient evidence to prove that block 34 and the accused Bluetooth module synchronize signals in substantially the same way. GET timely appealed the grant of summary judgment and the district court’s determination that it failed to make a showing that the claimed and accused structures are structurally equivalent.

GET argued that Dr. Fernald’s testimony about the “way” the structures in the ’730 patent and the Bluetooth modules of the Accused Products synchronize data streams demonstrates structural equivalence. However, the Federal Circuit found that GET’s infringement analysis failed to meet its burden in describing the “way” the “encoding means” structure in the ’730 patent performs its function. The Federal Circuit noted that the district court identified logic block 34 as the structure for the ’730 patent’s “encoding means,” and block 34 contains many different elements, but GET and Dr. Fernald’s analysis ignored most of those elements without any substantive explanation for why that was appropriate. Moreover, Dr. Fernald provided inconsistent testimony as to which subset of elements matter to the structural equivalence analysis.

The Federal Circuit noted that Dr. Fernald’s analysis of the “way” logic block 34 synchronizes the two streams relies solely on the bit-rate clock. Additionally, like the expert in Traxcell Techs., LLC v. Sprint Commc’ns Co., 15 F.4th 1121, 1127 (Fed. Cir. 2021), Dr. Fernald neglected to address a significant fraction of logic block 34. Moreover, Dr. Fernald suggested at various points in GET’s filings that the data selector and codec “play roles” in the synchronization process. The Federal Circuit concluded that without further explanation of why these two elements of the structure may be ignored, GET failed to present enough evidence for a reasonable jury to conclude that the accused structure and logic block 34 are structural equivalents.

The Federal Circuit also noted that Logic block 34, the relevant structure, consists of several elements some identified by GET as part of how block 34 synchronizes the two streams that are absent from his description of the “way” the structure functions. However, merely comparing the bit-rate clock of the “encoding means” structure, as GET attempts to do here, is insufficient to demonstrate that the claimed and accused structures are equivalent.

GET argued that because both structures synchronize streams to a bit-rate clock, and all logic designs performing this operation are structurally equivalent, the structure in the Accused Products, whatever they may be, must be equivalent to the patent’s identified structure. This broad infringement theory was based on GET’s failure to review schematics of the Accused Products’ Bluetooth module, causing the Accused Products to be left as something of a black box.

The Federal Circuit agreed with the district court’s rejection of GET and Dr. Fernald’s analysis of the Bluetooth modules in the Accused Products. GET and Dr. Fernald use the theory to bridge the gap between the “black box” accused structure and logic block 34, but a party cannot defeat summary judgment “with conclusory allegations, unsupported assertions, or only a scintilla of evidence.” Secondly, as the district court noted, the suggestion that an, essentially, infinite number of “ways” to accomplish a function are equivalent collapses the function-way-result test into a function-result test—an outcome that would clash with our precedent. Finally, this argument is inconsistent with the patent’s specification, which reveals a detailed logic circuit for performing the claimed function, and its prosecution history, in which the inventor stressed the claimed invention’s synchronization scheme was “unique and novel.”

Accordingly, the district court’s summary judgment grant was affirmed.

The Case is No. 24-1686.

Judge: Chen, R.

Attorneys: Devan V. Padmanabhan (Padmanabhan & Dawson PLLC) for Genuine Enabling Technology LLC. Seth W. Lloyd (Morrison & Foerster LLP) for Sony Group Corp.

Companies: Genuine Enabling Technology LLC; Sony Group Corp.

Cases: Patent FedCirNews USPTO