Civix-DDI, LLC v. Hotels.com, No. 05 C 6869, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Oct. 25, 2010) (St. Eve, J.).

Judge St. Eve construed the terms of the patents-in-suit to internet technology. From a procedural standpoint, the Court did the parties and readers of the opinion the favor of identifying the Court’s construction in a bulleted list at the beginning of the opinion, as well as at the end. Lists of the construed terms and their construction opinions make claim constructions far more readable.

Of particular note, the Court construed the following terms:

  • "Associated category" means "a classification both stored in the database and provided or selected by a user that divides particular items of interest into subgroups." The Court gave "little weight" to a construction from a prior case which the parties in that case stipulated to because defendants in this case were not parties to that case, nor did they have privity with the prior defendants.
  • "Connected to" means "joined together or linked to, in a direct or indirect manner." Because neither the claim language nor the specification exclude an indirect connection, the construction included both direct and indirect connections.
  • "Database" means "a collection of related information organized for convenient access." The Court accepted the construction from the prior case because it was supported by the intrinsic evidence. Nothing in the claims or specifications required a single device as proposed by defendants.
  • "Internet" means "a system of linked computer networks, worldwide in scope, that is typically associated with using TCP/IP as a standard protocol." This was the Court’s construction from the prior case, but it was reached after a de novo review of the construction and all relevant evidence. Additionally, "Internet" and "internet" were construed to mean the same thing.
  • "User" means "a human being."
  • "Video" means "a presentation of multiple sequential frames of image data." The construction was intended to create a distinction between digital pictures and video.
  • "Within a radius about the one port" means "within a circular area the center of which is the user’s present physical location."