By Memorandum Opinion entered by The Honorable Gregory M. Sleet in Quest Licensing Corp. v. Bloomberg L.P. et al., Civil Action No. 14-561-GMS (D.Del., January 19, 2017), the Court granted Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment of Non-Infringement of U.S. Patent No. 7,194,468 ("the '468 patent").
By way of background, the '468 patent discloses an apparatus and method enabling a subscriber to receive via mobile telecommunications network information that is updated in real time such as financial market information. Id. at *2. Significantly, all of the asserted claims of the '468 patent require receiving and/or supplying "changing information." Id. In its claim construction order, the Court construed the term "changing information" to mean "only [price] data that has changed." Id. at *5.
Defendants moved for summary judgment of non-infringement asserting that the defendants' accused systems do not receive or supply "only data that has changed" as required by all of the asserted claims of the '468 patent. Id. at *3. Defendants argued that "it is undisputed that defendants' accused systems receive and supply transaction information – such as stock trades, bids and quotes – that always includes non-changing information such as the stock symbol." Id. at *5. Plaintiff Quest argued that there exists a material factual dispute as to whether sending non-repeating price data along with a ticker symbol or other identifier falls within the scope of the claims. Id. Quest also argued that, under the Court's construction of "changing information", the attachment of the stock symbol or other identifier does not preclude a finding of infringement. Id.
Ultimately, the Court agreed with Defendants. Given the record, the Court found, as a matter of law, that Defendants' accused systems receive and supply financial exchange transaction information that always includes a unique identifier that does not change. Id. at *5-6. Thus, the Court concluded that Defendants' accused systems do not infringe the '468 patent. Id. at *5-8. The Court found important the fact that, in an explanation provided to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board ("PTAB") in its Preliminary Response to the Covered Method Patent Review ("CBMR"), Quest stated that the "claims also provide for an apparatus whereby only changed information of interest to the subscriber is sent to that subscriber's mobile device." Id. at *6.
A copy of the Memorandum Opinion is attached.
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