ITUS (OTCQB:ITUS) is appealing the claims construction ruling from last October in its patent infringment lawsuit againstMicrosoft (NASDAQ:MSFT), saying it believes the district court interpreted its patent in a "limited" manner.
ITUS subsidiary Secure Web Conference has filed a notice of appeak with the US District Court in the Eastern District of New York, the first step in the process of filing its appeal in the federal US Court of Appeals.
Secure Web alleged in the lawsuit that certain calls made using Microsoft's Skype and Lync web conferencing services are covered by its own key based web conferencing encryption patents.
"We believe that the District Court interpreted our patent in a limited manner that was not intended by the inventors, and is contrary to the tenets of claim construction adopted by the Federal Circuit," said ITUS president and chief executive officer Robert Berman, in a release.
"Without this limitation, we believe that our patents would cover modern iterations of our security technology, which are widely used to encrypt audio video communications between computers, and hand held devices."
The company said appeals of claims construction decisions to the Federal Circuit are common, with about a 50 percent success rate.
The expectations is that the Federal Circuit will review the decision tied to the ITUS case on a "de novo" basis, ITUS said, meaning without deference to the lower court decision as a result of the absence of any factual dispute between the parties on claim construction issues.
A claims construction hearing is part of a patent infringement lawsuit, and is where the court gives meaning to certain patent claim terms that are in dispute.
ITUS, which acquires, enforces and makes money from patents, currently has 10 patent portfolios in areas such as encrypted cellular communications, key-based web conferencing encryption and other fields.
Based on the Microsoft decision last year, ITUS also suspended its lawsuits against Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), AT&T (NYSE:T) and Citrix, which also rely on the language interpreted by the court hearing.