Summary judgment of non-infringement was denied
Thynge, J. Defendants’ motion for summary judgment of noninfringement was denied.
Defendants claim non-infringement because the disputed claims require the signal interface circuitry for choosing from among a plurality of possible information streams in response to control signals from a user. The court declined to add the additional limitation of user selection to the claimed invention. Without such limitation, it is possible that the use of the accused devices that select from a multiple of data streams may be infringing. Also, defendants contend that since another disputed claim requires bi-directional communication and the transceiver must send and receive high frequency signals, there is no infringement because the accused modems transmit signals in the 25 to 138 kHz band, far below 250 kHz. They also contend that the transmission of signals in the voice and high frequency bands are not equivalent because lower frequencies carry more information due to frequency attenuation. The court rejected defendants’ contention that the patent requires communication to and from the transceiver at high frequencies based upon its Markman construction of “communication.” The motion for summary judgment of non-infringement was denied.
A copy of the full opinion is available here.
