IP Law Daily, PATENT—Fed. Cir.: Summary judgment affirmed in wireless audio dispute, (Aug 14, 2023)
Law Firms Mentioned:Cooley LLP
Organizations Mentioned:Apple | Apple Inc. | Cooley, LLP | Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, LLP | One-E-Way, Inc.
By Kevin M. Finson, J.D.
Summary judgment was appropriate because the trial court properly interpreted the parties’ stipulated claim construction.
A seller of wireless digital audio systems did not show infringement by Apple, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has held. Under the parties’ agreed claim construction, no infringement was possible (One-E-Way, Inc. v. Apple Inc., August 14, 2023, Moore, K.).
One-E-Way, Inc. (One-E-Way) was the owner of U.S. Patents Nos. 10,129,627 (the ’627 patent) and 10,468,047 (the ’047 patent), both of which were directed at a wireless digital audio system. One-E-Way brought suit against Apple, Inc. (Apple) for infringement based on Apple’s wireless earbud products which used Bluetooth technology. After the parties agreed on the construction of the term “unique user code,” Apple moved for and was granted summary judgment of non-infringement on the ground that its products did not use a unique user code as required by the patents. One-E-Way appealed.
Claim construction. During claim construction, the parties stipulated that the term “unique user code” meant a “fixed code (bit sequence) specifically associated with one user of a device(s)” and the court adopted this construction. Apple’s summary judgment motion was based on the argument that its devices contained codes associated with devices, not with users. One-E-Way argued that the “unique user code” was associated with a user through the operation of the particular device it was assigned to. Reviewing the prosecution history, the court found that there was no error in the trial court’s interpretation of the agreed construction as referring to users and not to devices because One-E-Way had relied on that very distinction to overcome prior art which assigned codes to devices instead of to users.
The parties agreed that under this interpretation of the contested claim term there was no infringement, so the court affirmed the award of summary judgment in favor of Apple.
The case is No. 22-2020.
Attorneys: Douglas Glen Muehlhauser (Knobbe, Martens, Olson & Bear, LLP) for One-E-Way, Inc. Heidi Lyn Keefe (Cooley LLP) for Apple Inc.
Companies: One-E-Way, Inc.; Apple Inc.
Cases: Patent FedCirNews