Spatial or temporal proximity terms like “direct” may require not only a specific relationship between corresponding claim limitations, but also an interpretation of other limitations that facilitates the relationship. Here, for example, transmitting files “directly” to a destination address required that the destination address be a specific network address so that no indirect translation steps would be necessary. It may therefore be best to avoid specifying the spatial or temporal relationship between claim limitations unless absolutely necessary for patentability.
Background / Facts: The patents being asserted here are directed to multi-tier virtual private networks that allow users to establish encrypted connections with a server or with another client computer. The claims recite an initialization procedure that requires intercepting a “destination address” during initialization of communications and then transmitting encrypted files over the network “directly to the destination address.”
Issue(s): Whether the claimed “destination address” should be interpreted as the specific “network” address of the target client computer, rather than any identifier associated with a location of the target client computer.
Holding(s): Yes. “We find the claim language regarding the destination address informative. … [T]he language of transmitting the files directly to the destination address that is intercepted during the initialization of communications suggests that the destination address allows transmission to the target client computer without having to distinguish or differentiate through various internal identifiers or other methods to determine where those files need to be delivered. This requires the destination address to be the network address.”