SIRF Technology v. ITC and Broadcom (Fed. Cir. 2010) concerne l’importation et la vente d’appareil GPS par SIRF. Les brevets en litige concerne des méthodes augmentant la fiabilité de signaux GPS et la vitesse de calcul du positionnement. En défense SIRF alléguait que la cie Magellan, qui n’avait jamais revendiqué de droits sur les inventions, était co-propriétaire des droits sur les brevets puisqu’un des employés de Magellan est l’un des inventeurs nommés dans les brevets en cause et que celui n’aurait pas cédé ses droits sur les inventions. Selon la cession, l’employé de Magellan cède:
“all inventions . . . which are related to or useful in the business of the Employer . . . and which were . . . conceived . . . during the period of the Employee’s employment, whether or not in the course of the Employee’s employment.â€
Plusieurs cessions sont effectives sous la loi d’un état. Toutefois, c’est la cour fédérale américaine qui doit être utilisée pour déterminer si une cession est directe et automatique ou ne constitue qu’une entente selon laquelle les droits seront cédés éventuellement. De plus, selon la loi fédérale américaine, une cession est présumée valide jusqu’à preuve du contraire. Dans le cas présent, la Cour a déterminé que les preuves à l’effet que Magellan était propriétaire de droits sur l’invention n’étaient pas suffisantes .
“If Magellan and Abraham recognized that Global Locate was the owner of the trade secret rights to the invention, it logically follows that Magellan and Abraham did not think that Magellan was the owner of similar rights that eventually became the subject of the ‘346 patent.â€
La cour fédérale a également confirmé la validité des revendications portant sur le calcul de la position:
We also think that the presence of the GPS receiver in the claims places a meaningful limit on the scope of the claims. In order for the addition of a machine to impose a meaningful limit on the scope of a claim, it must play a significant part in permitting the claimed method to be performed, rather than function solely as an obvious mechanism for permitting a solution to be achieved more quickly, i.e., through the utilization of a computer for performing calculations. We are not dealing with a situation in which there is a method that can be performed without a machine. Contrary to appellants’ contention, there is no evidence here that the calculations here can be performed entirely in the human mind. Here, as described, the use of a GPS receiver is essential to the operation of the claimed methods.
In Bilski, the court held that the a patentable method claim must be either (a) implemented using particular machine or (b) transform an article from one state to another. In addition, the machine-or-transformation must create a “meaningful limit on the scope of the claims.†Here, the court held that the methods as claimed “could not be performed without the use of a GPS receiver.†And that limits were meaningful because the GPS receiver is not simply “an obvious mechanism for permitting a solution to be achieved more quickly.â€