Narrow Construction May Apply When No Evidence Supports Broader Construction

Addressing claim construction issues, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a claim construction limiting "communications path" to wired communications. Ruckus Wireless, Inc. v. Innovative Wireless Solutions, LLC, Case Nos. 15-1425; -1438 (Fed. Cir., May 31, 2016) (Reyna, J) (Stark, J, dissenting).

Innovative Wireless Solutions (IWS) sued several dozen hotels and coffee shops for patent infringement, alleging that they infringed the asserted patents by providing wifi internet access using off-the-shelf wifi equipment. In response, the wifi equipment providers, Ruckus and Cisco, filed for declaratory judgment of invalidity and non-infringement.

The central dispute was whether the claimed "communications path" covered wireless communications. IWS argued that "communications path" covered both wired and wireless communications, while Ruckus and Cisco argued that it should be limited to only wired communications. Agreeing with Ruckus and Cisco, the