Claims shall not be construed so as to read any recited term out of the patent. Here, for example, actions occurring “when” a caller is “placed on hold” were found to be limited to the moment the caller is placed on hold, rather than at any point during the period the caller is on hold, in order to give effect to the term “placed.” It may therefore be best to ensure that claim terminology is as concise as is feasible, and avoid any extraneous terms that may impart separate and additional meaning.
Background / Facts: The patent being asserted here is directed to systems for playing music and messages (e.g., advertisements) through telephones and public speaker systems. The claims cover actions such as accessing messages from a storage device, providing the accessed messages to the playback device, and playing the messages on the playback device, each occurring “when” the caller is “placed on hold.”
Issue(s): Whether “when” is limited to the moment the caller is placed on hold, rather than at any point during the period the caller is on hold.
Holding(s): Yes. “There is no disclosure that any of these actions, or any other action, occurs before or while the caller is on hold. Every instance of the words ‘on hold’ in the [] patent is preceded by the word ‘placed.’ Thus, to construe this term to not require that playback starts at the time the caller is placed on hold, as [the patentee] asks us to do, would be to read the word ‘placed’ out of the claims of the patent. Our precedent prohibits us from adopting such a construction.”