DeLorme Publishing Co. v. Briartek IP, Inc., 60 F. Supp. 3d 652

DeLorme sued BriarTek seeking a declaratory judgment of noninfringement and invalidity of U.S. Patent No. 7,991,380 (the '380 Patent); BriarTek counterclaimed for infringement of asserted claims 1, 2, 5–12, 17, 34, and 35.
The '380 Patent claims an emergency monitoring/reporting system: a user unit (with text entry, processor, satellite comms) and a monitoring system (with receiver/processor/output) that communicate via satellite.
DeLorme moved for summary judgment of invalidity, relying on three prior-art printed publications: de Vries (2004 patent publication), a 1999 Motorola satellite phone user manual, and a 1995 IEEE article (ORBCOMM). BriarTek contested the public availability of two references but failed to rebut evidence of publication.
The court adopted the parties’ agreed/advocated claim constructions for summary-judgment purposes and assumed BriarTek’s proposed higher level of ordinary skill in the art.
The court found (as a matter of law) that de Vries anticipates claims 1, 5–12, 17, 34, and 35; ORBCOMM anticipates claims 1, 2, 17, 34, and 35; the Motorola Manual is prior art but raised factual disputes precluding anticipation as to several claims.
The court further held the asserted claims would have been obvious in view of combinations of these references; because invalidity over prior art disposed of the case, other challenges (written description, indefiniteness, subject-matter eligibility) were not decided.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (DeLorme)	Defendant's Argument (BriarTek)	Held
Prior-art availability	Motorola manual and ORBCOMM were publicly available pre-critical date	Insufficient evidence of public availability for Motorola and ORBCOMM	Court: both Motorola Manual and ORBCOMM are printed publications as a matter of law (testimony + dates)
Anticipation of asserted claims	de Vries, ORBCOMM, and Motorola disclose the claimed two‑way satellite text system and dependent features	Prior art lacks specific claimed features (e.g., "detailed" text messages, monitoring system, coupling to user)	Court: de Vries anticipates claims 1,5–12,17,34,35; ORBCOMM anticipates claims 1,2,17,34,35; Motorola raises genuine issues so not relied on for anticipation of all asserted claims
Obviousness over combined references	Even if single refs do not disclose every limitation, combining de Vries, ORBCOMM, and Motorola would make claims obvious to POSITA	Combination is improper or systems are not interchangeable; some limitations absent	Court: claims are obvious in view of the cited combinations (KSR logic); summary judgment appropriate
Claim construction and POSITA	Adopt parties’ agreed constructions for summary-judgment analysis; POSITA definition affects obviousness	Advocated narrower/broader constructions or higher skill level to avoid invalidity	Court: adopted agreed/party constructions and BriarTek’s higher skilled POSITA for purposes of motion; constructions did not prevent invalidity findings

Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, 477 U.S. 242 (summary-judgment standard)
Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (framework for obviousness analysis)
KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (obviousness—common sense and combination of references)
IPXL Holdings, L.L.C. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 430 F.3d 1377 (anticipation requires each and every limitation in single reference)
Transclean Corp. v. Bridgewood Servs., Inc., 290 F.3d 1364 (inherent anticipation standards)
Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303 (claim construction principles)
Invitrogen Corp. v. Clontech Labs., 429 F.3d 1052 (expert-opinion cannot create mere colorable disputes without foundation)
Krippelz v. Ford Motor Co., 667 F.3d 1261 (conclusory expert assertions insufficient to avoid summary judgment)
Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Ben Venue Labs., Inc., 246 F.3d 1368 (anticipation requires enablement to POSITA)
Golden Bridge Tech., Inc. v. Nokia, Inc., 527 F.3d 1318 (anticipation may be decided on summary judgment when no genuine dispute)