CENTRAK, INC. v. SONITOR TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
- Feb 14 2019 |
- Category: CAFC Updates
CenTrak sued Sonitor Technologies for alleged infringement of U.S. Patent No. 8,604,909, which claims systems for locating and identifying portable devices using ultrasonic base stations. The district court granted Sonitor’s motions for summary judgment that certain claims are invalid for lack of written description and not infringed. The CAFC concludes that the district court erred in determining that there were no genuine disputes of material fact on both issues. With respect to the written description issue, the CAFC finds that there is a material dispute of fact as to whether the named inventors actually possessed an ultrasonic RTL system at the time they filed their patent application or whether they were leaving it to the industry to complete an unfinished invention. With respect to validity, the CAFC notes that a final assembler can be liable for making an infringing combination even if the final assembler does not make each individual component element, and finds that there is a question of fact as to whether Sonitor makes a combination of hardware and soft-ware that is “configured” to infringe. Accordingly, the CAFC reverses and remands for further proceedings.