Case: 19-2065 Document: 40 Page: 1 Filed: 04/22/2020
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
DIGITAL ALLY, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
TASER INTERNATIONAL, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2019-2065
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
District of Kansas in No. 2:16-cv-02032-CM, United States
District Judge Carlos Murguia.
______________________
Decided: April 22, 2020
______________________
ADAM PRESCOTT SEITZ, Erise IP, P.A., Overland Park,
KS, for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by PAUL R.
HART, Greenwood Village, CO.
PAMELA BETH PETERSEN, Axon Enterprise, Inc., Scotts-
dale, AZ, for defendant-appellee. Also represented by
LAUREN ELIZABETH DOUVILLE, JOHN D. GARRETSON, Shook,
Hardy & Bacon, LLP, Kansas City, MO.
______________________
Case: 19-2065 Document: 40 Page: 2 Filed: 04/22/2020
2 DIGITAL ALLY, INC. v. TASER INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Before LOURIE, MAYER, and WALLACH, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM.
Digital Ally, Inc. (“Digital”) appeals the final judgment
of the United States District Court for the District of Kan-
sas granting summary judgment of non-infringement of
U.S. Patent No. 9,253,452 (the “’452 patent”). See Digital
Ally, Inc. v. Taser Int’l, Inc., No. 2:16-cv-02032-CM (D. Kan.
June 17, 2019), amended by No. 2:16-cv-02032-CM (D. Kan.
July 25, 2019) (“District Court Decision”). We affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
The ’452 patent is directed to a system, designed for use
by law enforcement officers, which uses multiple recording
devices to record events. See ’452 patent col. 1 ll. 7–16.
Specifically, it describes “[a] multiple recording device
management system including an intermediate multiple
recording device managing apparatus, a vehicle recording
device mounted in a police vehicle and synced to the man-
aging apparatus, and a personal recording device carried
by a police officer and wirelessly synced to the managing
apparatus.” ’452 patent, Abstract. Independent claim 10
recites:
A system for recording multiple viewpoints of an
event, comprising:
a first recording device configured to be mounted
on or configured to be carried by a law enforcement
officer so as to record a first set of record data for
the event;
a second recording device, distinct from the first re-
cording device, located so as to record a second set
of record data for the event, said first set of record
data being distinct from the second set of record
[data]; and
a recording device manager operable to:
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DIGITAL ALLY, INC. v. TASER INTERNATIONAL, INC. 3
receive a trigger signal,
said trigger signal being at least one of activation
of a law enforcement vehicle’s siren, activation of
said law enforcement vehicle’s signal lights, activa-
tion of said law enforcement vehicle’s spotlight, a
vehicle crash event, and a vehicle speed, and
broadcast, in response to receiving the trigger sig-
nal, at least one communication signal including
correlation data to the first recording device and
the second recording device instructing the first re-
cording device to begin recording said first set of
record data and instructing the second recording
device to begin recording said second set of record
data,
wherein the first recording device stores the corre-
lation data as metadata for the first set of record
data and the second recording device stores the cor-
relation data as metadata for the second set of rec-
ord data, such that the first set of record data and
the second set of record data can be correlated back
to the event,
wherein the first set of record data and the second
set of record data are recorded beginning substan-
tially simultaneously in response to the broadcast
communication signal.
Id. col. 16 ll. 21–53.
Digital brought an action against TASER Interna-
tional, Inc. (“TASER”) 1 in the United States District Court
for the District of Kansas, alleging that TASER’s Axon Sig-
nal Units (“ASUs”), when used with certain cameras,
1 TASER changed its name to Axon Enterprise, Inc.,
effective April 5, 2017.
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4 DIGITAL ALLY, INC. v. TASER INTERNATIONAL, INC.
infringed claims 10, 14–16, and 20 of the ’452 patent. 2 On
June 17, 2019, the district court granted TASER’s motion
for summary judgment of non-infringement, concluding
that TASER’s ASUs do not broadcast “correlation data” as
required by independent claim 10. See District Court Deci-
sion, slip op. at 6. The court explained that the parties had
agreed that the term “correlation data,” as used in claim
10, was “data, including but not limited to [a] unique serial
number and time stamp, used to link together or otherwise
associate record data.” Id. at 5 (internal quotation marks
omitted). In the court’s view, TASER’s accused products do
not broadcast “correlation data” because they are “not ca-
pable of being used to link together or otherwise associate
[video or audio] data.” Id. at 6 (internal quotation marks
omitted) (alteration in original). The court rejected Digi-
tal’s argument that TASER’s ASUs are capable of broad-
casting “correlation data” because they can link a video
recording to an event, explaining that the asserted claims
require “video-to-video” correlation rather than “video-to-
event” correlation. Id. at 6–7.
Digital then filed a timely appeal with this court. We
have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1) (2012).
2 Digital also accused TASER of infringing U.S. Pa-
tent No. 8,781,292, but subsequently withdrew its allega-
tions of infringement related to that patent. See Digital
Ally, Inc. v. Taser Int’l, Inc., No. 16-2032-CM, 2018 WL
3472815, at *1 (D. Kan. July 19, 2018). Digital also ad-
vanced unfair competition and antitrust claims against
TASER; this court recently affirmed the district court’s dis-
missal of those claims. See Digital Ally, Inc. v. Taser Int’l,
Inc., 720 F. App’x 1023 (Fed. Cir. 2018).
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DIGITAL ALLY, INC. v. TASER INTERNATIONAL, INC. 5
II. DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
Claim construction based on the intrinsic evidence is a
question of law that this court reviews de novo. See, e.g.,
Trustees of Columbia Univ. v. Symantec Corp., 811 F.3d
1359, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2016); Info-Hold, Inc. v. Applied Me-
dia Techs. Corp., 783 F.3d 1262, 1265 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
Where, as here, “the parties do not dispute any relevant
facts regarding the accused product . . . but disagree over
possible claim interpretations, the question of literal in-
fringement collapses into claim construction and is amena-
ble to summary judgment.” Duncan Parking Techs., Inc. v.
IPS Grp., Inc., 914 F.3d 1347, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2019) (cita-
tion and internal quotation marks omitted).
B. “Correlation Data”
Resolution of the infringement dispute presented here
turns on the proper construction of a single claim term:
“correlation data.” The parties agree that independent
claim 10 of the ’452 patent requires a “recording device
manager” that is capable of “broadcast[ing] . . . at least one
communication signal including correlation data to [a] first
recording device and [a] second recording device.” ’452 pa-
tent col. 16 ll. 30–40 (emphasis added). They also
acknowledge that, during claim construction proceedings,
they agreed that the term “correlation data,” as used in
claim 10, means “data, including but not limited to [a]
unique serial number and time stamp, used to link to-
gether or otherwise associate record data.” District Court
Decision, slip op. at 5; see A. 311, 1616.
The parties vigorously dispute, however, whether the
claimed “correlation data” refers to data which links “rec-
ord data” to other “record data,’’ i.e., which links one video
to another video (“video-to-video correlation”) or instead
which links a video to a recorded event (“video-to-event
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6 DIGITAL ALLY, INC. v. TASER INTERNATIONAL, INC.
correlation”). 3 TASER contends that both the language of
claim 10, when read in its entirety, and the disclosure in
the specification make clear that “correlation data” means
data which links one video recording to another video re-
cording. Digital, by contrast, argues that the district court
misconstrued the parties’ stipulated construction and that
“correlation data” need not be capable of linking one video
recording to another video recording. In other words, ac-
cording to Digital, claim 10 only mandates video-to-event
correlation.
There are at least three reasons why TASER has the
better argument. First, the specification strongly supports
the district court’s conclusion that “correlation data” means
data that links one video recording to another video record-
ing. See District Court Decision, slip op. at 6–7. The spec-
ification explains that prior art recording device
management systems were not able to “corroborate the rec-
orded data by correlating data taken from distinct devices.”
’452 patent col. 1 ll. 27–28 (emphasis added). In other
words, prior art systems were not able to provide effective
video-to-video correlation.
The claimed invention purportedly overcomes this
problem through a system in which a “recording device
managing apparatus” sends “time stamps to synced record-
ing devices for corroborating recordings” from the record-
ing devices. Id. col. 1 l. 66–col. 2 l. 4 (emphasis added).
Claim 10 tracks this approach, describing a “recording de-
vice manager” which “broadcast[s] . . . correlation data” to
two “distinct” recording devices, referred to as a “first re-
cording device” and a “second recording device.” Id. col. 16
ll. 23–40. Over and over again, the specification describes
a recording device manager which sends data, such as a
3 The parties also agree that the term “record data”
in claim 10 refers to the “audio and video for an event.”
A. 1609.
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DIGITAL ALLY, INC. v. TASER INTERNATIONAL, INC. 7
time stamp or a serial number, to “correlate” or “match”
video recordings from different recording devices. See, e.g.,
id. col. 6 ll. 45–51 (“[T]he unique serial number and time
stamp allow [the] video recording software that manages
the data recordings to link together or otherwise associate
data recordings having the same serial number and time
stamp. Because recorded data is captured by disparate de-
vices, use of the unique serial number assists in associating
together the recorded data from each device.” (emphases
added)); Id. col. 6 ll. 51–57 (explaining that the data pro-
vided by the recording device manager to each of the re-
cording devices allows a police officer to “correlate and
corroborate” recordings from distinct recording devices
(emphasis added)); Id. col. 7 ll. 15–21 (“The time stamp and
serial number corresponding to the captured and recorded
video and audio data recordings from the personal record-
ing device can be matched with the concurrent time stamp
corresponding to the captured and recorded video and au-
dio data recordings from the vehicle recording device to
link the recordings chronologically.” (emphasis added) (di-
agram numbering omitted)). Thus, because the specifica-
tion repeatedly states that the data broadcast from the
recording device manager is used to correlate video record-
ings from two distinct recording devices, the term “correla-
tion data” in claim 10 is most reasonably interpreted to
refer to data linking a video recorded on one device to a
video recorded on a different device. See, e.g., Advanced
Fiber Techs. (AFT) Tr. v. J & L Fiber Servs., Inc., 674 F.3d
1365, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (“A patent is a fully integrated
written instrument; the claims must be read in view of the
specification, of which they are a part.”); Netword, LLC v.
Centraal Corp., 242 F.3d 1347, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (“The
claims are directed to the invention that is described in the
specification; they do not have meaning removed from the
context from which they arose.”); Vitronics Corp. v. Concep-
tronic, Inc., 90 F.3d 1576, 1582 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (“[The spec-
ification] is the single best guide to the meaning of a
disputed term.”).
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8 DIGITAL ALLY, INC. v. TASER INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Second, Digital’s proposed construction of the term
“correlation data” renders claim language superfluous.
See, e.g., Cat Tech LLC v. TubeMaster, Inc., 528 F.3d 871,
885 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (refusing to adopt a claim construction
which would render a claim limitation meaningless); Bicon,
Inc. v. Straumann Co., 441 F.3d 945, 950 (Fed. Cir. 2006)
(explaining that “claims are interpreted with an eye toward
giving effect to all terms in the claim”). In Digital’s view,
the “correlation data” which is broadcast from the record-
ing device manager to the recording devices, ’452 patent
col. 16 ll. 37–40, serves only to link a video recording to a
recorded event. See Appellant Br. 9. But the penultimate
clause of claim 10 specifically requires the video recordings
to “be correlated back to the [recorded] event.” ’452 patent
col. 16 l. 49. There would be no need for the penultimate
clause to require correlation back to the recorded event if,
as Digital asserts, the “correlation data” initially sent by
the recording device manager to the recording devices had
already linked the video recordings back to the recorded
event.
Finally, there is no merit to Digital’s assertion that the
district court failed to properly consider or acknowledge its
interpretation of the parties’ stipulated construction of the
term “correlation data.” See Appellant Br. 6, 12. The dis-
trict court expressly recognized Digital’s position that the
parties’ stipulated claim construction required video-to-
event correlation rather than video-to-video correlation.
See District Court Decision, slip op. at 6. As the court cor-
rectly concluded, however, Digital’s position “ignore[d]” the
plain meaning of the stipulated construction. Id.
In this regard, the parties, as noted previously, stipu-
lated that the term “correlation data” in claim 10 meant
“data, including but not limited to [a] unique serial number
and time stamp, used to link together or otherwise associate
record data.” Id. at 5 (emphases added); see A. 311. Given
that Digital acknowledges that the terms “record data” and
“video” can be used “interchangeably,” Appellant Br. 8 n.3,
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DIGITAL ALLY, INC. v. TASER INTERNATIONAL, INC. 9
the plain meaning of the agreed-upon construction is that
“correlation data” is data that can be used to “link together”
or “associate” video recordings, i.e., video-to-video correla-
tion. We reject, therefore, Digital’s unsupported assertion
that the stipulated construction requires only that “corre-
lation data” link a video recording with “something,” but
“does not identify what that something is.” Id. at 20 (em-
phasis omitted).
C. Infringement
“Because there is no dispute that the accused correla-
tion data [in TASER’s system] cannot be used to link to-
gether or otherwise associate video from separate accused
cameras,” id. at 5, the district court correctly granted
TASER’s motion for summary judgment of non-infringe-
ment. We have considered Digital’s remaining arguments
but do not find them persuasive.
III. CONCLUSION
Accordingly, the judgment of the United States District
Court for the District of Kansas is affirmed.
AFFIRMED