Microsoft and Nintendo Battle Game Controller Patents In ED of Texas

A recent claim construction ruling in a case involving both Nintendo and Microsoft set the stage for a Spring 2008 jury trial on a number of patents involving game controller technology owned by Plaintiff Anascape Ltd. Both Microsoft and Nintendo sought unsuccessfully to stay the entire litigation in view of an on-going reexamination of several patents-in-suit. Judge Ron Clark stayed the litigation as to some but not all of the patents. In his claims construction order, entered November 30, 2007, Judge Carter construed seven terms that relate to four patents, Patent Nos. 5,999,084, 6,102,802, 6,135,886, and 6,343,991. These patents all relate to the switches and buttons on controllers used for video games. The Order (link below PDF), awarded Anascape its definition for “pressure-sensitive variable conductance material,” finding that Microsoft's construction improperly tried to limit the definition of the disputed claim term by excluding a preferred embodiment of the term. He also agreed with Anascape's contention that no construction was necessary for terms related to individual button pressing. Anascape lost any literal infringement arguments concerning the terms “pressure-sensitive variable conductance material” and “means for creating an analog [output proportional to][signal representing] varying applied physical pressure.” According to Judge Carter, the jury will have to pass on these limitations under a theory of infringement by the Doctrine of Equivalents.

In large part, the claims construction order seemed to give Anascape what it wanted, however, Anascape just asked the Court to continue its trial date because of certain scheduling conflicts of its lead trial lawyers, McKool Smith.
AnscapeClaimsConstruction.pdf
AnscapevMSFTNoticeofClaimrejections.pdf
AnscapevMSFTPTOOrderReexam.htm
AnascapevMSFTNoticeofreexam.htm

Microsoft Wins One in the ED of Texas

I used to think that juries in East Texas never met a patent they didn't like. All of that changed last Friday when word of Microsoft's victory over Computer Acceleration Corp. ("CAC") spread across the blogosphere. CAC is a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corp., which is owned by one of the largest patent licensing companies in existence. A recent SEC filing shows that Acacia subsidiaries are involved in 33 pending patent infringement cases for a variety of technologies, including vehicle magnetic brakes, user-activated Internet advertising, digital media transmission and credit card fraud protection.

The patent-in-suit in Microsoft's case, US Pat. No. 5,933,630, entitled "Program Launch Acceleration Using Ram Cache." (patent here in pdf US5933630%5B1%5D.pdf)

Interestingly enough, the inventors are both Washingtonians, Clinton L. Ballard (a registered member of the Suquamish tribe) and Timothy W. Smith, both reportedly residents of Seattle Washington.

The Jury found the claims of the '630 patent invalid. Some commentators on this case are saying the ED of Texas is not as plaintiff-friendly as some think. Mike Smith of McKool Smith reports that the win rate in the ED of Texas for this year is below the national average by almost 2/3 or 67%.