Giving Meaning to Silence (Claim Construction)

by Dennis Crouch

Seabed Geosolutions v. Magseis FF (Fed. Cir. 2021)

The Magseis invention here is fully enclosed single case seismometer.  The patent explains that “hundreds to thousands of receivers” might be deployed in order to conduct a seismic survey.  U.S. Pat. No. RE45,268. A key feature of a seismometer is the “geophone” that actually detects the vibrations.  Prior to this invention, seismometers were already known as were the geophones used.  The improvement here is the arrangement of all the components within the single case. Of importance to this case is that every claim requires the geophone to be “internally fixed” to either the housing or an internal compartment.

Magseis sued Seabed for infringement; Seabed turned around and petitioned for inter partes review (IPR).  Although the IPR was initiated, the PTAB eventually sided with the patentee and concluded that the claims had not been proven invalid.

The basic issue on appeal was a question of whether the prior art showing a “gimbaled” attachment counts as being “fixed.”  A gimbal is a mount mechanism that allows multiple degrees of freedom and are often an element of a camera tripod setup. 

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