SP Techs., LLC v. Garmin Int’l, Inc., No. 08 C 3248, Slip Op. (N.D. Ill. Oct. 9, 2009) (Pallmeyer, J.).

Judge Pallmeyer construed the claims of plaintiff SP Technologies’ (“SPT”) patent to a method for inputting data on a touch-screen display using a keyboard that cannot be resized, moved or closed by a user. As an initial matter, the Court noted that, contrary to SPT’s argument, the Court was not required to consider the accused products when construing the claims. Instead, the Court had discretion to consider the accused devices. And because the parties did not provide a reason to consider them, the Court chose not to include the accused products in its analysis. Here are constructions of note:

• “Plurality of date input fields” was defined as more than one field, but the fields need not simultaneously appear on the same screen.

• “Termination” referred to terminating or closing the keyboard, but not resizing or moving the keyboard as defendants argued. The ordinary meaning of terminate controlled over some statements the inventor made during prosecution that could have been read more broadly.

• “Derived input” was defined as information requested by a computer application or program, as opposed to information “desired” by a user.

Finally, the Court noted a problem with the defendants’ presentation of the evidence that will be remedied by the Local Patent Rules. Defendants cited to documents within the prosecution history by title, as opposed to using Bates numbers, making it hard for the Court to find the relevant portions of the 250 page prosecution history.  Local Patent Rule 4 requires that parties file a Joint Appendix as part of the claim construction process that is paginated and includes the prosecution history, among other documents. Click here for much more on the Local Patent Rules in the Blog’s archives.