Unexplained Examiner´s Amendment Reexamination Did Not Broaden Claims

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a district court decision that a patent's claims were invalid for impermissible broadening during reexamination and found that amendments to an independent claim resulted in a substantive change to the claim. Predicate Logic, Inc., v. Distributive Software, Inc., Case No. 07-1539 (Fed. Cir., Oct. 9, 2008) (Linn, J.).

Patent owner Predicate Logic brought suit against Distributive Software for infringement of a patent directed to a universal data measurement, analysis and control method for use in a software development process. During the litigation, Distributive requested ex parte reexamination of the patent-in-suit. The claims were allowed as amended during reexamination via an Examiner's Amendment, without explanation. An amendment to independent claim 1 shifted the word "said" within a clause, changing the phrase "instantiating said at least one index" to "instantiating at least one said index." A