“Whether the Board erred by rejecting Petitioner’s own expert’s claim construction of ‘wearable’ in the Patents’ context as ‘unobtrusive and easily hidden’ (like performer bodypacks are), and further erred by rejecting a construction that a device is ‘wearable’ only if smaller (not larger) than the device identified by both applicant and examiner during prosecution (Nagra V) as too big to be ‘wearable.’”
“Whether the Board erred by finding the prior art combination disclosed the construed ‘master timecode generator,’ in the absence of substantial (or any) evidence that the prior art, singly or in combination, disclosed any purported ‘master’ controlling any local audio device’s timecode generator in any way.”
“Whether the Board erred by misconstruing the claims to be broad enough to cover both a Dropout Embodiment and a Multitrack Embodiment, and by misconstruing the claims to be broad enough so that the two types of ‘audio data’ that must be ‘combined’ may come originally from different audio sources.”
“Regardless of the outcome of Issues 1, 2, and 3, whether the Board erred in its application of industry praise law to the facts that exist in the record, leading it to analyze the ultimate question of obviousness without weighing evidence of nonobviousness that this Court’s precedents require it to weigh.”
Holding
“[W]e agree with the Board that the broadest reasonable construction of ‘wearable,’ found in both independent claims, is ‘suitable and in a condition to be worn,’ consistent with its dictionary definition.”
“The Board’s finding is supported by [the] disclosure of a master clock for synchronizing recordings ‘from a plurality of independent recording devices at a shared performance,’ . . . and of jam synchronization to allow ‘a time code generator to follow the time code off another source,’ . . . along with [the] disclosures of time-stamping and synchronizing recordings.”
“The ’902 patent had two challenged original independent claims: a system claim (claim 7) and a method claim (claim 12) . . . Original independent claim 12 of the ’902 patent and its dependent claims are relevantly similar to claim 12 of the ’307 patent and its dependent claims. The broadest reasonable interpretation of original claim 12 of the ’902 patent encompasses both multitrack creation and dropout repair. We affirm the Board’s determination as to claim 12 of the ’902 patent.”
“Finally, the Board had substantial evidence to support its determination that Zaxcom’s evidence of industry praise and long-felt need lacked a nexus to the claims.”
“For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the final written decisions of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.”
