Chicago IP Attorney & Lawyer : R. David Donoghue : Chicago IP Litigation Blog

Fernandez Innovative Techs., LLC v. General Motors Corp., No. 07 C 1397, 2008 WL 2168843 (N.D. Ill. May 23, 2008) (Kendall, J.).

Judge Kendall construed the claims of plaintiff's U.S. Patent No. 6,963,899 related to vehicle telematics – systems like the accused products Onstar and Lexus Link. Construction of the two terms were of particular note:

Real Time

Through the claim construction hearing the parties agreed that "real time" meant continuous. But after the hearing, plaintiff filed a motion arguing that real-time meant "contemporaneous." The Court allowed defendants a responsive submission, and then adopted plaintiffs' construction because it comported with the intrinsic evidence and dictionary definitions better than defendants' construction did.

Selects and Downloads

The Court held that neither party's construction of "selects and downloads" was consistent with the agreed upon construction of related term "selects and sends." The Court, therefore, gave the parties fourteen days to meet and confer, and then either submit an agreed upon construction, or individual revised constructions.

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Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Johnson Controls Interiors LLC, No. 2007-1314-1467, Slip Op. (Fed. Cir. Feb. 19, 2008).

The Federal Circuit reversed Judge Moran’s construction of “binary code” and, therefore, reversed the limited preliminary injunction entered by the Northern District - click here and here for the Blog’s posts regarding the injunction. The Northern District construed “binary code” as a code represented by two values, but not necessarily a binary number – click here and here for the Blog’s posts regarding the Northern District’s claim and construction opinions. The Federal Circuit praised the Northern District’s claim construction analysis, but reversed the construction:

The district court commendably strove to follow this court’s rules for claim construction. See Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1318-19. In this regard, the trial court weighed the intrinsic evidence along with the extrinsic evidence and properly sought to avoid importing a limitation from the specification into the claims. See id. Nonetheless, this court discerns that the ‘544 patent specification gives particular limiting meanings to the language in the claims.

The Federal Circuit held that “binary code” required a binary (or base two) number. Otherwise, any values would meet the limitation because all values, whether in base two, three, the more standard ten or any other, are represented by computers using two values – 1 and 0. Because the revised claim construction called into question the Northern District’s likelihood of success analysis, the Federal Circuit reversed the preliminary injunction.

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Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Lear Corp., No. 05 C 3449, 2007 WL 1238908 (N.D. Ill. Apr. 25, 2007) (Moran, J.).

Judge Moran denied defendant Lear's motion to stay the Court's preliminary injunction pending appeal to the Federal Circuit,* but did allow third party General Motors ("GM") to intervene of right and modified the PI to limit harm to defendant and GM.  In a March 30, 2007 opinion and order, the Court granted plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction, preventing defendant from marketing and selling its garage door opener transmitters based upon the Court's prior claim constructions (these opinions are available in the Blog's archives).  The Court held that Lear could not show a likelihood of success on the merits, in part because the Court's "Markman decision and subsequent reconsideration dealt an enormous blow to [Lear's] case."  The Court acknowledged that while plaintiff would suffer irreparable harm without the PI, both Lear and GM could suffer irreparable harm because of the PI.  In order to resolve the irreparable harm issue, the Court revised the PI to exempt Lear's sales to GM.  Because GM was Lear's only client and because the exemption allowed GM to continue sourcing Lear's product  the revised PI would remove harm to GM and substantially reduce Lear's harm.  While Lear would not be able to add new customers, it would not have to idle its related workers and factories because Lear would not lose any customers.  Because the removal of GM sales from the PI substantially limits Lear's potential harm, the Court denied Lear's motion, supported by GM, to increase the bond from $10,000,000 to $50,000,000.

While GM was not a party to the suit, the Court, in a footnote, allowed GM to intervene of right pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 24(a)(2) for the limited purposes of arguing for an exemption from the PI or a stay of it and to seek a higher injunction bond. 

*  Lear has already appealed the PI and the claim construction decision.

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