Judge Richard G. Andrews recently construed several disputed claim terms across the following patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 6,126,448, 6,213,780, 6,685,478, 6,398,556, 6,688,888, and U.S. Patent No. RE 38,432, which each generally relate to computer-aided learning systems, methods, and/or apparatuses. IpLearn, LLC v. Kenexa Corporation et al., C.A. Nos. 11-825, 11-876, 11-1026-RGA (D. Del. Feb. 10, 2014). Specifically, Judge Andrews construed the disputed claim terms as follows:
– “company documents” means “documents in the possession of the company.”
– “institute user pays to access materials regarding the at least one learning user” / “pays to access materials” means “pays a fee to access personal material regarding the at least one learning user.”
– “ascertaining materials for a learning user to learn” means “identifying and selecting a set of learning materials for a learning user.”
– “the user” means “either a learning user or an institute user.”
-“dialogue session” means “a duration of time for the users to communicate in a dialogue environment.”
– “retrieving/retrieved/retrieves” / “generating/generated/generates” means “retrieving by the system” / “generated by the system.”
– “user/users” means “student/students.”
– “line-item ” means “a subdivision of a subject.”
– “inference engine” means “hardware, software, or some mix of hardware and software, that accesses relationship rules to determine a student’s level of understanding in a subject or line item.”
– “relationship rules” means “rules that define the relationship between or among areas of
a subject.”
– “reviews ” means “review of the summarized learning materials.”
– “learnt line-item” means “a line-item for which the student has achieved a preset level in learning that line item.”
– “learnt line-item selection rules” / “line-item selection rules” means “rules that govern which [learnt] line-item is selected by the computer.”
Judge Andrews also found the following terms should be given their plain and ordinary meanings:
-“searching at least some of the documents” / “at least some of the documents are searched.”
-“recommendation.”
– “summarized learning materials.”
Delaware IP Law Blog 