Intouch Technologies, Inc. v. Vgo Communications, Inc.

Summary

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed a patent infringement dispute involving remote telepresence robot systems and three asserted patents. The court affirmed the judgment of non-infringement and denial of a new trial on infringement, but reversed the findings that claims of two patents were invalid for obviousness and remanded for those invalidity judgments to be vacated.

Holdings

1. The terms require an ability to determine which user or remote station has exclusive control of the robot, including the ability to consider and resolve competing requests; they do not merely require passively allowing the first user to obtain access.
2. A call-back mechanism must send an availability message to a user or users who previously requested access to and were denied access to the particular robot. The message need not be sent to only one user.
3. Substantial evidence supported the jury's finding that VGo's system lacked both the claimed arbitrator and call-back mechanism, and therefore did not infringe claim 79, literally or under the doctrine of equivalents.
4. Substantial evidence supported the jury's finding that VGo's system did not infringe claim 1 because it lacked the required arbitration limitation.
5. Substantial evidence supported the jury's finding that VGo's system did not infringe claims 1 and 8 because it did not actuate the camera in the direction indicated by movement data.
6. The evidence was insufficient to support the jury's obviousness finding by clear and convincing evidence, so the judgment invalidating claim 79 was reversed.
7. The evidence was insufficient to support the jury's obviousness finding by clear and convincing evidence, so the judgment invalidating claim 1 was reversed.
8. Although the testimony concerning VGo's outside-counsel opinions was improper, it did not warrant a new infringement trial because InTouch failed to show that the error probably affected the verdict.
9. The issue was moot because the court reversed and ordered vacatur of the invalidity judgments.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the district court correctly construed the '357 patent terms 'arbitrator' and 'call back mechanism' and the '030 patent term 'arbitrating to control.'
2. Whether substantial evidence supported the jury's findings that VGo did not infringe the asserted claims of the '357, '030, and '962 patents, literally or under the doctrine of equivalents.
3. Whether substantial evidence supported the jury's findings that claim 79 of the '357 patent and claim 1 of the '030 patent were invalid for obviousness.
4. Whether evidentiary rulings concerning VGo's outside-counsel opinions and undisclosed prior art required a new trial.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded