CAFC finds a "digest" can be information

The meaning of the word "digest" was at issue.

In Extreme Networks v. Enterasys, the CAFC vacated
a district court's summary judgment:

Because the district court erroneously construed the
contested limitation “digest of information,” this court
vacates the summary judgment as to the ’181 patent.
This court also vacates the denial of Extreme’s motion for
attorney fees.

Was a digest information or a structure?


The district court explained in its sum-
mary judgment order that because the digest “contain[s]”
network protocol processing information, “the digest is a
structure and not the contents of the structure.” Extreme
Networks, 558 F. Supp. 2d at 920. The district court
granted summary judgment of non-infringement based on
Enterasys’s alleged concession that Extreme’s devices do
not have such a structure.
The parties agree that the term “digest” does not have
a specific definition in the relevant art. The term “digest”
ordinarily means a collection of information. (...)

The district
court erred by focusing on the claim term “containing”
and concluding that something “containing” information
cannot also be information. To the contrary, the term
“containing” does not indicate whether the “digest” is a structure or the contents of a structure.


The CAFC affirming tossing of an expert:

Frederiksen would not qualify as a person of ordinary
skill in the relevant art even under her own proposed
definition. Frederiksen received an Associate of Applied
Science degree in Computer Programming. She worked
as a system administrator for several corporations, but
she never seems to have worked on “the design or devel-
opment of high speed switches, bridges, or routers.”
General experience in a related field may not suffice when
experience and skill in specific product design are neces-
sary to resolve patent issues. See, e.g., Flex-Rest, LLC v.
Steelcase, Inc., 455 F.3d 1351, 1360-61 (Fed. Cir. 2006)
(affirming exclusion of an ergonomics expert where the
invention at issue related to an ergonomic keyboard
design). Therefore, the district court did not abuse its
discretion by ruling that Frederiksen was an unqualified expert.