Thursday, March 11, 2021
In determining whether a claim element invoked 35 USC § 112, ¶ 6, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that “module” was a nonce term and required sufficient corresponding structure in the patent specification to avoid indefiniteness under 35 USC § 112, ¶ 2.
Rain Computing, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Case Nos. 20-1646, -1656 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 2, 2021) (Moore, J.)
Rain sued Samsung for infringement of a patent directed to a method for delivering software application packages to user terminals over a network. The claims at issue included an element that recited a “
user identification module configured to control access [to] software application packages.” The district court determined that the “user identification module” was a means-plus-function term subject to 35 USC § 112, ¶ 6, but that the specification disclosed sufficient corresponding structure such that the term was not indefinite. Rain appealed the judgment of non-infringement.