CAFC Affirms Dismissal of Infringement Case Against Bank of America

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) on Thursday affirmed a district court’s order dismissing a claim of patent infringement brought by Dynapass against Bank of America. Chief Judge Moore authored the opinion.

Dynapass claimed Bank of America Corporation and Bank of America, N.A. (BOA) infringed its U.S. Patent No. 6,993,658, which covers a user authentication system in which user tokens are supplied through communication devices. Dynapass claimed Bank of America’s two-factor authentication feature of BOA’s Mobile Banking Application infringed claims 1–7 of the ’658 patent and sued Bank of America in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Based on the district court’s construction of the term “receiving the password,” the parties filed a Joint Stipulation of Non-Infringement and Motion for Entry of Final Judgment, and the district court subsequently dismissed the case with prejudice.

On appeal, Dynapass argued the district court erred in its construction of “receiving the password,” specifically by precluding separate receipt of the “passcode” and “token” components of the password and improperly excluding an alternative embodiment where “the passcode 154 and the token 156 are submitted separately.” But the CAFC disagreed and said “the patentee’s chosen claim language unambiguously does not extend to the alternative embodiment where the passcode and token are received separately.” Quoting TIP Sys., LLC v. Phillips & Brooks/Gladwin, Inc., the opinion noted that “the mere fact that there is an alternative embodiment disclosed in the [asserted] patent that is not encompassed by district court’s claim construction does not outweigh the language of the claim, especially when the court’s construction is supported by the intrinsic evidence.”

Reading the language of both the claims and the written description, the CAFC concluded that the “repeated and consistent juxtaposition between the password and its requisite components confirms that separately receiving the passcode and token does not constitute ‘receiving the password.’” Thus, the CAFC held there was no error in the district court’s claim construction of “receiving the password” to preclude separate reception of the passcode and token, and affirmed the order dismissing Dynapass’ infringement claim.