Case Explained: TRACKTIME, LLC v. AMAZON.COM SERVICES LLC

Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Filed: 2026-07-02 The federal-circuit affirmed the district court’s judgment of invalidity and non-infringement for claim 9 of U.S. Patent No. 8,856,638 based on anticipation by the “LiveNote” reference under 35 U.S.C. § 102, but vacated the district court’s ruling that claims 1 and 2 of U.S. Patent No. 8,862,978 were invalid for indefiniteness and remanded the latter for further proceedings. Regarding the ‘638 patent, the court applied a de novo standard of review to the denial of judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) and an abuse of discretion standard to the denial of a new trial. The court held that sufficient evidence supported the jury’s finding that the LiveNote reference anticipated the claimed method because the LiveNote user guide disclosed use on a “tablet PC” (a mobile computing device) with a touch-sensitive interface operable by a pen or finger, thereby satisfying the claim limitations for a mobile computing device and touch-sensitive input interface. The court rejected TrackTime’s arguments that the evidence was insufficient or contrary to the clear weight of the evidence, noting that the jury could reasonably credit expert testimony interpreting the LiveNote documentation as disclosing all claimed features on tablet devices. Regarding the ‘978 patent, the court vacated the district court’s determination that the claim limitations “executable program code configured to facilitate annotation” and “executable program code configured to synchronously play . . . multimedia” were means-plus-function terms under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f) lacking corresponding structure in the specification. The court applied the standard set forth in *Dyfan, LLC v. Target Corp.*, 28 F.4th 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2022), which requires a detailed analysis of whether the claim terms, read in context and considering their specific functions, recite sufficient structure to a person of ordinary skill in the art. The court reasoned that the district court’s prior analysis was insufficient because it did not fully consider whether the specific combination of functions (annotation and synchronous play on a mobile device) or extrinsic evidence regarding industry usage established that “executable program code” connoted a specific class of structure rather than a generic function. Consequently, the case is remanded to the district court to conduct a new determination under § 112(f), potentially allowing for additional factual submissions and expert evidence focused on whether the terms identify sufficient structure to perform the claimed functions. Do It For The Case Law is a news reporting service. Nothing in this episode constitutes legal advice.