Pictometry International Corporation v. Roofr Inc.

Pictometry International Corporation v. Roofr Inc. The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board's finding that all claims of the '800 patent are unpatentable for obviousness, holding that substantial evidence supported the Board's determination that a skilled artisan would have known to sequence Abhyanker's marker-locking feature after marker placement, satisfying the claimed 'user-acceptance' limitation even under Pictometry's narrower temporal interpretation. Illustrates that a patent owner's proposed temporal claim construction will not save claims from obviousness where the prior art, with ordinary creativity, can be modified to satisfy the sequence—and where the patent's own figures undercut the proposed narrow construction. Affirmed The '800 patent claims a roof-measurement process in which a user moves a marker on a satellite image to identify a roof location and then provides 'user-acceptance' (an affirmative confirmation step) of that location. Pictometry argued Abhyanker's marker-locking feature did not satisfy the 'user-acceptance' limitation because the lock option was available before—not responsive to—the user's marker designation; the Board rejected this temporal argument and found the claims obvious even assuming Pictometry's narrower reading. The Federal Circuit declined to resolve the claim-construction dispute, noting that Pictometry's own patent figures (Figs. 4A–4D) show the 'confirm selection' button present before the user enters an address, creating a significant obstacle to the proposed narrow construction under the principle that fundamental embodiments should not be read out of claims. The court found no reversible error in the Board's conclusion that a skilled artisan with ordinary creativity would sequence Abhyanker's lock-pushpin option to operate after marker placement, satisfying the temporal requirement even under Pictometry's interpretation. Claim 17 was disposed of summarily because Pictometry offered no independent argument distinguishing it from claims 1 and 11. § 103 claim construction remand non-precedential § 103 claim construction non-precedential § 103 claim construction non-precedential