D'Agostino v. Mastercard International Inc., 844 F.3d 945

Patents at issue: U.S. Patent Nos. 7,840,486 and 8,036,988 (continuation), claiming methods to generate limited-use transaction codes that limit merchant access to a cardholder’s credit-card number.
MasterCard petitioned for two inter partes reviews before the PTAB challenging many claims of both patents as anticipated by Cohen and as obvious over Cohen and Musmanno.
The PTAB cancelled all reviewed claims, relying principally on a construction of the “single merchant” limitation and a finding that Cohen discloses designating a payment category before generating the transaction code.
Representative claim (claim 21) requires (b) requesting a transaction code that “limits transactions to a single merchant, said single merchant limitation being included in said payment category prior to any particular merchant being identified as said single merchant,” and later identifying the particular merchant when authorizing a payment.
D’Agostino appealed, arguing the Board misinterpreted the single-merchant limitation (and separately challenged the Board’s finding about timing of designating the payment category). The Federal Circuit reviewed claim construction de novo under the broadest reasonable interpretation standard.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (D’Agostino)	Defendant's Argument (MasterCard)	Held
Meaning of the “single merchant” limitation (temporal separation / non‑identification at request)	The limitation requires the requester to limit the number of authorized merchants to one at the time of requesting the code, but not to identify which merchant until later.	The Board (and MasterCard) read the limitation to permit specifying a chain (e.g., Target) when requesting the code and identifying a particular store later.	The court held the Board’s chain‑store reading is inconsistent with the claim language and specification; the single‑merchant limitation requires limiting to one merchant without identifying that merchant at the time of request, so the Board’s construction was unreasonable and must be vacated.
Whether Cohen discloses designating a payment category before generating the transaction code	D’Agostino argued Cohen does not show limitations are defined/designated before the code (number) is generated.	MasterCard/Board found Cohen discloses the user specifying permitted uses/limitations in the same call in which the customized number is requested, and that the limited‑use nature may be printed or preset on the card.	The court found substantial evidence supports the Board’s finding that Cohen discloses defining/designating limitations before generating the code and upheld that factual finding.

Cuozzo Speed Techs., LLC v. Lee, 136 S. Ct. 2131 (Sup. Ct.) (permitting PTO use of broadest reasonable interpretation in IPR)
Straight Path IP Grp., Inc. v. Sipnet EU S.R.O., 806 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir.) (de novo review of claim construction when no extrinsic facts in dispute)
In re Skvorecz, 580 F.3d 1262 (Fed. Cir.) (claims must be read in light of the specification; cannot give legally incorrect interpretations)
In re Suitco Surface, Inc., 603 F.3d 1255 (Fed. Cir.) (claims read in light of the specification)
Microsoft Corp. v. Proxyconn, Inc., 789 F.3d 1292 (Fed. Cir.) (consult prosecution history when patent is back before the agency)
Cordis Corp. v. Medtronic AVE, Inc., 339 F.3d 1352 (Fed. Cir.) (prosecution statements can reinforce claim meaning)
In re Jolley, 308 F.3d 1317 (Fed. Cir.) (substantial‑evidence standard supports agency choice among reasonable factual inferences)