RPC:HW 3-30-11: Walter-Jenkinson v. Hilton Davis similar case

Frontline Placement Technologies, Inc. v. CRS, Inc., 2011 Markman 451,962

Frontline Placement Technologies had a patent on a employee absence system, for which employees could notify the company if they needed a replacement, and replacements could accept the temporary position. It was ruled that CRS infringed on Frontline's patent by the equivalent language used in order to implement the system. A total of 16 similar words were used and in dispute for equilvalency, since CRS system boasted an improvement by having an intermediate step in the absence to replaced process whihc notifies that an acceptance and being accepted are differing meanings in the everyday sense of the word. It was ruled that the current language in the claims infringed, and that clarification which limited the means of ambiguously equivalent words must be stated.