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  • Federal Circuit Clarifies That Section 112(f) Means-Plus-Function Analysis Of Software Limitations Must Consider Claimed Functions And Context
    08/04/2026

    On July 2, 2026, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“CAFC”) issued a precedential opinion vacating and remanding a decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware holding claims of U.S. Patent No. 8,862,978 invalid for indefiniteness under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f).  TrackTime, LLC v. Amazon.com Services LLC, No. 2024-1102 (Fed. Cir. July 2, 2026).  In reaching its decision, the CAFC held that the district court failed to adequately consider whether the challenged software claim limitations, read in context, would have conveyed sufficient structure to a person of ordinary skill in the art before treating those limitations as means-plus-function limitations governed by Section 112(f).  The Federal Circuit separately affirmed the judgment regarding U.S. Patent No. 8,856,638, which had been found invalid and not infringed.

    The asserted ’978 patent is directed to systems and methods that allow users to navigate multimedia content on mobile devices using a time-correlated transcript.  The district court concluded that limitations requiring “executable program code configured to facilitate annotation” and “executable program code configured to synchronously play” multimedia were means-plus-function limitations governed by Section 112(f).  Concluding that the specification failed to disclose sufficient corresponding structure for those functions, the district court held the claims indefinite.  This decision was made in 2021, prior to the Federal Circuit’s decision in Dyfan, LLC v. Target Corp., 28 F.4th 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2022), which provided further guidance regarding when software-related claim limitations convey sufficient structure to avoid Section 112(f).

    On appeal, the CAFC emphasized that the Section 112(f) inquiry does not end with determining whether a software-related term appears generic in isolation.  Rather, the claim limitation must be evaluated in its full context, including the claimed functions and surrounding claim language, to determine whether it would have conveyed sufficient structure to a person of ordinary skill in the art.  The inquiry may also consider whether skilled artisans would have understood the limitation as referring to a known class of software structures and whether extra-patent usage supports that understanding.  The Court further noted that extra-patent usage may be essential to the Section 112(f) inquiry and that, where a court relies solely on intrinsic evidence, it should explain why the intrinsic record resolves the issue with the required degree of clarity.

    Applying those principles, the CAFC concluded that the district court’s analysis was incomplete because it focused primarily on whether “executable program code” was a generic software term without adequately considering the claimed annotation and synchronous-play functions, the surrounding claim language, and evidence regarding how skilled artisans would have understood the limitations as a whole.  The CAFC therefore emphasized that the Section 112(f) inquiry must evaluate the disputed limitation in its full context, rather than focusing on whether an individual software term appears generic in isolation.

    Categories: Claim Construction,  Indefiniteness,  Mean-Plus-Function,  Software Patents

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