On September 5, 2023, United States District Judge J. Paul Oetken (S.D.N.Y.) construed several terms raised by Plaintiff Dynamics, Inc.(“Dynamics”) and Defendant Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (“Samsung”), including “Analog waveform.”
Specifically, the Court construed five terms of U.S. Patent No. 8,827,153 (the “’153 Patent”), which “pertains [to] a particular way to emulate the magnetic stripes of credit or debit cards by storing digital waveforms in memory and then converting those digital waveforms into an analog waveform that can then be run through a coil of wire to emulate the magnetic stripe.” Id. at 1-2.
The first term construed was: “Analog waveform.” Id. at 3. Samsung proposed construing the term as a “continuous wave with negative and positive peaks; a wave is continuous when the amplitude of the wave is moved through intervening values when changing, rather than jumping or stepping from one peak amplitude to the next.” Id. at 3-4. Dynamics proposed the plain and ordinary meaning, “such that ‘regardless of the proper construction, a real-world square wave falls within its scope.’” Id. As the Court explained, “[d]igital waveforms are represented as ‘square’ waves, such that they have only two discrete values and ‘jump’ between them.” Id. at 4. The Court reasoned that “while in theory, digital waves have only two values and vary perfectly between them, in the real world, this is functionally impossible. That means that there really is no such thing as a perfect square, real-world [] wave with only two values. The heart of the dispute between the parties, therefore, is not really what the meaning of ‘analog waveform’ is, but whether ‘real world square waves’—that is, waves whose technical output might have only two values, but which when rendered in reality by necessity of physics have values between the two poles, are included in ‘analog’ waves.” Id. at 5.
In addressing the issue, the Court looked to the International Trade Commission’s (“ITC”) prior construction of the term in In the Matter of Certain Mobile Devices with Multifunction Emulators, Inv. No. 337-TA-1170. The Court noted a split in the ITC with the “majority’s analysis implicitly validat[ing] Dynamics’s position.” Id. Ultimately, the Court sided with Dynamics and the ITC majority, explaining that it “is not persuaded by Samsung to exclude ‘real-world square waves’ from the definition of analog waveforms.” Id. at 6. The Court thus construed “analog waveform” as “‘a wave shape whose amplitude changes in a continuous fashion,’ which includes real-world square waveforms.” Id.
The second term construed was: “At least one track of magnetic strip[e] data / [digital representation] of said at least one track of magnetic stripe data.” Id. Samsung proposed construing the term as “at least one complete track of magnetic stripe data as defined by the ISO standards” / “[digital representation] of said at least one complete track of magnetic stripe data as defined by the ISO standards.” Id. at 7. Dynamics proposed the plain and ordinary meaning “such that ‘at least one track of magnetic stripe data,’ is as defined by the ISO standards.” Id. The Court characterized the dispute as being “over Samsung’s insertion of the word ‘complete’ into the definition, which Samsung argue[d] is borrowed from Dynamics’ own prior arguments regarding” patent scope. Id. The Court agreed that “Dynamics previously described the ’153 Patent as pertaining to ‘complete’ or ‘entire’ tracks” and adopted Samsung’s proposed construction. Id. at 8.
The third term construed was: “A waveform generator operable to generate said analog waveform from a digital representation of said at least one track of magnetic stripe data.” Id. Samsung proposed construing the term as “a component operable to generate said analog waveform by converting a digital representation of said at least one track of magnetic stripe data (as construed) received as an input.” Id. Dynamics proposed the plain and ordinary meaning. Id. The Court noted that “this case has already run through multiple tribunals, including an initial determination before an ALJ, a determination by the ITC, the PTAB, and the Federal Circuit,” and this was the first time that Samsung had sought a construction of the term. Id. Because the Court found that Samsung’s proposal would “add[] confusion and limit[] the scope of the term in a way the ’153 Patent does not,” it construed the term “according to its plain and ordinary meaning.” Id. at 8.
The fourth term construed was: “Wherein said device is operable to retrieve said digital representation from a plurality of digital representations of said at least on[e] track of magnetic stripe data.” Id. at 8-9. Samsung proposed a construction of “wherein said device is operable to retrieve said digital representation from any of a plurality of digital representations of said at least one track of magnetic stripe data (as construed) already existing in memory rather than dynamically generated or built on the fly.” Id. at 9. Dynamics proposed the plain and ordinary meaning “such that wherein said device is operable to read from memory said digital representation of at least one track of magnetic stripe data from a plurality of digital representations of said at least one track of magnetic stripe data.” Id. As the Court explained, the “primary disagreement as to these terms is over Samsung’s addition of the limitation ‘already existing in memory rather than dynamically generated or built on the fly.’” Id. The Court found that “Dynamics’ [proposed] construction [wa]s the same as was adopted by the ITC, and agreed to then by both parties,” while “Samsung’s ‘on the fly’ language merely adds unnecessary language that will provide no clarity to the finder of fact beyond the plain and ordinary meaning of ‘retrieve,’ which both parties agree means to get something from memory that already exists.” Id. at 10. For those reasons, the Court adopted Dynamics’ proposed construction. Id.
The fifth and final term construed was: “Wherein said digital representation is retrieved from a memory of said device based on a signal from said button.” Id. Samsung proposed a construction of “wherein a signal from said button causes said digital representation to be read out of a location in a memory of said device in which it was stored prior to the selection of said button.” Id. Dynamics proposed the plain and ordinary meaning. Id. The Court explained that the “dispute over this phrase is much the same as the dispute over phrase 4, and again focuses on clarifying that ‘retrieve’ means to retrieve something that already exists in memory.” Id. Because “[n]either party requested claim construction of this claim in the previous proceedings, and its meaning is clear from the language itself . . . the Court construe[d] th[e] term according to its plain and ordinary meaning.” Id. at 10-11.
The case is Dynamics Inc. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., No. 19-cv-6479 (S.D.N.Y.).
