Wildseed Mobile, LLC v. Google LLC

Wildseed Mobile, LLC v. Google LLC The Federal Circuit affirmed the Board's construction of 'taken … from a message' to include information generated or derived from message text—not merely verbatim extraction—and affirmed the Board's finding that all challenged claims are unpatentable as obvious. The court also rejected Wildseed's APA challenge to the Board's obviousness analysis of the dependent claims. Patent owners cannot narrow 'taken from a message' to verbatim extraction absent clear lexicography or disclaimer; prosecution history that narrows only the source of information does not also limit the method of obtaining that information. Affirmed Claim construction: 'taken … from a message' encompasses information derived or generated from message text (e.g., inferring 'golf' from a reference to 'Pebble Beach'), not just verbatim extraction; the claim language limits the source but not the method of obtaining information. Prosecution history: The applicant's amendment adding the 'from a text message' limitation distinguished Owensby only on the source of information and the absence of an affirmative user act—it said nothing about verbatim-only extraction, so no disclaimer of derived information. Specification: Multiple modules in the preferred embodiments are described as 'generating,' 'analyzing,' and 'determining' information; the court declined to import a verbatim-extraction limitation from Figure 8 into the claims. Dependent claims: Because claim 1 is not limited to a single source or verbatim extraction, dependent claims requiring that 'provided information additionally includes' other data types are not so limited either; Wildseed conceded substantial evidence supported obviousness under the correct construction. APA: The Board satisfied APA notice-and-comment requirements by quoting the parties' positions, citing intrinsic evidence, and explaining its agreement with Google's construction, providing a reasonably discernible path for appellate review. § 103 claim construction non-precedential § 103 claim construction non-precedential § 103 claim construction non-precedential