This past Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued a precedential decision affirming a district court holding that the software term “payment handler” was a “nonce” term for functional language that followed it, thereby invoking 35 U.S.C. § 112, sixth paragraph, as mean-plus-function claiming. The Federal Circuit then held that the corresponding patent specifications did not recite sufficient structure that corresponded to the claimed function, making the “payment handler” element indefinite and therefore invalidating the associated patents.

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