Claim Terms Are Not Necessarily Interpreted By Patents Incorporated By Reference

Finjan LLC v. ESET, LLC, Appeal No. 2021-2093 (Fed. Cir. 2022).

The Federal Circuit reversed a district court's summary judgment that interpreted the claims based on a definition in a separate patent that was incorporated by reference.

The patents at issue are directed to systems and methods for detecting computer viruses in a Downloadable. A non-asserted family member patent defines the term "Downloadable" as "a small executable or interpretable application program which is downloaded from a source computer and run on a destination computer."¹ Two of the asserted patents define "Downloadable" without using the term "small." Though they do incorporate by reference a patent that does define a Downloadable as "a small executable ...."