Brad,
I hope this is possible to explain without getting to wrapped up
in patent law. A company infringes a patent when they infringe
a single claim. It is possible to infringe claim one, and not
infringe claim 16. The analysis for 1 is made without regard
to 16. That is why i stated in my post that claims other than one
require payment, but did not consider them in detail. You only
consider other claims when the claim under analysis specifically
refers to a prior claim. (Claim 16 refers to one, thus
16 is infringed only when 1 is infringed.
If you are a visual person, consider this venn diagram
-----------------------------------------
| Claim 1 |
| |
| X |
| -----------------| |
| | Claim 16 | |
| | Y | |
| | | |
| |________________| |
| |
|_______________________________________|
You infringe by being inside the box. Claim one can be infringed by
product X because it has everyhting claim one requires. But it does
not infringe claim 16 (and is not inside the small box) because it
does not have a payment. Product Y infringes claim 16 and is in the
small box because it has all of the limitation of claim 16 and claim
1, which is referred to by claim 16. It is not possible to infringe
16 without infringin 1, it is possible to infringe 1 without
infringing 16.
The royalty is decided without regard to the number of claims
infringed or not infringed. In this case GIFT has alleged
infringement of only some claims. See the following list. Note
that they do not allege infrginement of claim 16.
Apogee Software Limited: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 18, 27, 28, 29, 30,
35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 49, 50, and 55.
Broderbund Software Inc.: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 18, 27, 28, 29,
30, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 49, 50, and 55.
CompuServe Inc.: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14; 18, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36,
37, 38, 39, 40, 49, 50, and 55.
CyberSource Corp.: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 18, 27, 28, 29, 3 0, 3 5,
3 6, 3 7, 3 8, 39, 40, 49, 50, and 55.
Internet Software Inc.: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 18, 27, 28, 29, 30,
35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 49, 50, and 55.
Intuit Inc.: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 18, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 37,
38, 39, 40, 49, 50, and 55.
McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36,
37, 38, 39, and 55.
Soft & Net Distribution: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 18, 27, 28, 29, 30,
35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 49, 50, and 55.
Softlock Services Inc.: Claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 14, 18, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35,
36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 49, 50, and 55.
Telebase Systems Inc.: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 37,
38, 39, and 55.
The Library Corp.: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 37, 38,
39, and 55.
Waldenbooks: Claims 1, 2, 3, 5, 14, 18, 27, 28, 29, 30, 35, 36, 37,
38, 39, 40, 49, 50, and 55.
Ziff-Davis Publishing Corp.: Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 14, 18, 27, 28, 29,
30, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 49, 50, and 55.
The site where I obtained the claims alleged to be infringed is
patents.com
There is even soemthing called the doctrine of claim differentiation
that says a dependent claim feature (a feature of a claim that refers
back to another claim) such as the payemnt method of dependent claim
16, cannot be read back into claim 1. i.e. claim 1 cannot be held to
require payment
If you do not understand this let me know, and give me your e-mail
address and I will see if I can e-mail a patent law primer to you.
GRC |
