A claim term used in exactly the same way as in conventional systems will be interpreted to require all the standard features thereof. Here, for example, the claimed “virtual machine” was interpreted as requiring the typical limitation of conventional “virtual machines” that the applications they run are not dependent on any specific underlying operating system or hardware. If any such features are not required for the claimed invention, it may be best to use different terminology.
Background / Facts: The patents being asserted here are directed to software for small, specialized computers, like payment terminals. The claims recite optimizations of an otherwise conventional “virtual machine,” which acts as an interpreter between an application program (like a particular merchant’s payment processing software) and a payment terminal’s underlying hardware and operating system. The accused devices run applications that depend on a specific underlying operating system or hardware.
Issue(s): Whether the claimed “virtual machine” requires the typical limitation of conventional “virtual machines” that the applications they run are not dependent on any specific underlying operating system or hardware.
Holding(s): Yes. “The intrinsic and extrinsic evidence establishes that, at the time the asserted patents were filed, the defining feature of a virtual machine was its ability to run applications that did not depend on any specific underlying operating system or hardware.” For example, the prosecution history expressly ties what is stated to be a “conventional” Java virtual machine acknowledged to operate in this manner to the claims, which were described as reciting “an addition to a conventional virtual machine,” not a wholly new structure. “In short, the asserted patents use ‘virtual machine’ in exactly the same way [conventional systems] used the term—the patents simply optimize the virtual machine for use on a payment terminal.”