Patent Law

GM survives at the CAFC over VIP in OnStar case

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

GM prevailed on construction, eg, For these reasons, we agree with the district court and hold that a
distance offset of the type used in Defendants? systems is not a ?coordinate? as the term
is used in the ?743 patent.

(...)
Similarly, the GM OnStar® (?GM?) system downloads driving event coordinates and up to three distance or time
offsets, each of which is also a scalar. In part because it found that numeric values like
those downloaded by Defendants? systems cannot be coordinates, the district court held
that Defendants did not infringe the ?743 patent. Vehicle IP, 578 F. Supp. 2d at 1117?
18.

VIP lost as to Cellco: Merely invoking words such as ?polyline? or ?coordinates? is
not enough to preserve a point of appeal. (...) Regarding the Cellco system, VIP did not raise
this argument before the district
court, and thus is barred from raising it for the first time on appeal. See Sage Prods.,
Inc. v. Devon Indus., Inc., 126 F.3d 1420, 1426 (Fed. Cir. 1997).

***on prosecution disclaimer-->

See 800 Adept, Inc. v. Murex Sec., Ltd., 539 F.3d 1354, 1364?65 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (recognizing
that prosecution disclaimer is ?typically invoked to limit the meaning of a claim term that
would otherwise be read broadly,? but consulting the prosecution history in that case ?as
support for the construction already discerned from the claim language and confirmed
by the written description?).

Full post as published by IPBiz on January 08, 2009 (boomark / email).