Capital One victorious in media patent dispute
US-based bank Capital One has again fended off an infringement claim asserted by Media Rights Technologies after the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed that one of the company’s media recording patents is invalid.
On Friday, August 4, the federal circuit ruled unanimously that US patent number 7,316,033—titled “Method of controlling recording media”—is invalid on the grounds that it is indefinite.
The patent covers a recording device which, through a “compliance mechanism”, halts the sharing of copyright-protected content.
Media Rights, which protects intellectual property directed to the transmission of digital content for entertainment and finance companies, sued Capital One in April 2013 at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia.
It took issue with the way Capital One delivers content to its consumers online.
Later that year, the district court ruled that the ‘033 patent was invalid. On appeal, the federal circuit affirmed the district court’s decision.
At the centre of the dispute was the construction of the phrase “compliance mechanism”, which appears in claims 1-27 of the asserted patent. Judge Kathleen O’Malley, writing the opinion, said that the district court did not err when it determined that this term is indefinite.
O’Malley said the term “compliance mechanism” is a means-plus-function claim. Under US law, the means-plus-function rule allows applicants to claim a specific technological function without having to recite structure or material.
It covers all corresponding structures and materials outlined in the patent’s specification.
As the term “compliance mechanism” does not use the word “means”, Media Rights argued that it was not a means-plus-function term. Capital One disagreed.
O’Malley said. “Here, the district court determined that ‘compliance mechanism’ is a means-plus-function term, and that the specification fails to adequately disclose the structure to perform all four of its functions.
“We agree with the district court that this fact renders all claims in the ‘033 patent indefinite,” she concluded.
