{"id":5413,"date":"2012-08-20T22:26:30","date_gmt":"2012-08-21T04:26:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/?p=5413"},"modified":"2012-10-11T10:17:26","modified_gmt":"2012-10-11T16:17:26","slug":"apple-v-samsung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/?p=5413","title":{"rendered":"No Mud-Slingers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Federal Circuit heard oral argument yesterday in the appeal of the\u00a0order<\/a> granting a preliminary injunction in Apple v. Samsung<\/span>.\u00a0\u00a0The court previously granted expedited oral argument for this appeal. \u00a0You can listen to yesterday’s oral argument here: \u00a0[Listen<\/a>].<\/p>\n

Much of the oral argument was spent arguing about how to define the size of the market for the smart phones at issue.<\/p>\n

What intrigued me, though, is that this is another “each” case.<\/p>\n

The claim being discussed in the oral argument reads as follows:<\/p>\n

\n

An apparatus for locating information in a network, comprising:
\nan interface module configured to receive an inputted information descriptor<\/span>from a user-input device;<\/p>\n

a plurality of heuristic modules<\/strong> configured to search for information that\u00a0corresponds to the received information descriptor, wherein:<\/p>\n

each heuristic module<\/strong> corresponds to a respective area of search and\u00a0employs a different, predetermined heuristic algorithm\u00a0corresponding to said respective area, and\u00a0the search areas include storage media accessible by the apparatus;\u00a0and<\/p>\n

a display module configured to display one or more candidate items of <\/span>information located by the plurality of heuristic modules on a display device.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Each<\/span><\/div>\n

You can listen to Apple’s attorney argue about the meaning of “each” in this sound bite [Listen<\/a>]. The link to the order granting the preliminary injunction at the beginning of this post gives more of a discussion on the claim construction of “each” for the above claim. \u00a0See page 19 of the order.<\/p>\n

Mud-slinging<\/span><\/p>\n

Judge Moore also had some tips for brief writers at the end of the oral argument. \u00a0She noted that mud-slinging in the briefs turns off appellate judges. \u00a0[Listen<\/a>].<\/p>\n

\n

Plurality<\/span><\/p>\n

The claim above also uses the word “plurality.” \u00a0Use of the word “plurality” is ubiquitous in patent claim drafting. \u00a0In his post<\/a> last week about the Federal Circuit’s \u00a0Magsil Corp. v. Hitachi<\/span>, __ F.3d __ (Fed. Cir. 2012) decision, Dennis Crouch observed that the word “plurality” could be deemed an open-ended range term with no upper bound.\u00a0 In\u00a0Magsil<\/span>, the court invalidated a claim for not fully enabling an open-ended range claim that recited “at least 10%.”<\/p>\n

“Siri, will the Federal Circuit officially recognize that “plurality” is a legal term of art — just as it did with the word “comprising” in Genentech v. Chiron<\/span>, 112 F.3d 495 (Fed. Cir. 1997) — and that it has an implicitly finite upper bound?”<\/em><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Federal Circuit heard oral argument yesterday in the appeal of the\u00a0order granting a preliminary injunction in Apple v. Samsung.\u00a0\u00a0The court previously granted expedited oral argument for this appeal. \u00a0You can listen to yesterday’s oral argument here: \u00a0[Listen]. Much of the oral argument was spent arguing about how to define the size of the market […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5413"}],"version-history":[{"count":59,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5457,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5413\/revisions\/5457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.717madisonplace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}