District Court: Means-Plus-Function Limitations Must Appear In Combination With Other Elements To Meet Enablement Requirement

A magistrate judge in the District of Delaware issued a Report and Recommendation, that found the sole asserted claim was a "single means" claim and therefore invalid for lack of enablement. In reaching that conclusion, the magistrate judge rejected the patentee's argument that the preamble of the claim disclosed a second element that satisfied the combination requirement of Section 112, paragraph 6 because the preamble simply recited a descriptor of the very apparatus that was the subject of the means-plus-function limitation in the body of the claim. The district court judge presiding over this case has scheduled a hearing to review the magistrate's ruling.

In this district court litigation and following a long history, Plaintiff ultimately accused Defendant of infringing a single dependent claim generally directed to a panoramic objective lens comprising an optical means for projecting a panorama into an image plane. The asserted claim further specifies the