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Friday, April 19, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Justices to Review Patent for Heart Rate Monitor

WASHINGTON (CN) - The patent validity of a heart-rate monitor built for exercise machines will go before the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices said Friday.

Biosig Instruments brought the lawsuit nearly a decade ago in Manhattan, and reinstituted the action in 2010 after re-examination proceedings before the U.S. Paten and Trademark Office. The complaint accused Nautilus of infringing claims 1 and 11 of its patent for a heart rate monitor associated with an exercise apparatus or exercise procedures.

A federal judge awarded Nautilus summary judgment, however, after finding that the "spaced relationship" term as recited in claim 1 of Biosig's patent was invalid for indefiniteness.

Finding otherwise, the Federal Circuit reversed in April 2013.

"The disputed term 'spaced relationship' does not suffer from indefiniteness," that reversal stated. "Because the term was amenable to construction, indefiniteness here would require a showing that a person of ordinary skill would find 'spaced relationship' to be insolubly ambiguous - that it fails to provide sufficient clarity delineating the bounds of the claim to one skilled in the art. In this case, a skilled artisan would find such boundaries provided in the intrinsic evidence.

The case is now headed to the Supreme Court after the Supreme Court granted Biosig a writ of certiorari Friday. Per its custom, the justices issued no comment with the order.

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