Gussin v. Nintendo of America, Inc.

Edward Gussin (plaintiff) owned the ’335 patent for an electronic system for drawing and coloring pictures on a television monitor. The system allowed users to move the drawing cursor around the screen, turn the drawing function on or off, and choose the color of the drawing when the drawing function was active. A portion of the patent claims explained the system’s ability to let users choose drawing colors. According to the claims, the system utilized a pixel memory that received and stored digital signals representing the actual color of the cursor. During patent prosecution, Gussin argued at length that the pixel-memory limitation in the patent claims exclusively applied to devices that used pixel memory to store actual color data rather than devices that used pixel memory to store color pointers, signals representing a color’s address within a separate memory. Nintendo of America, Inc. (Nintendo) (defendant) developed the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), a game system that connected to a television monitor, and Mario Paint, a game for the SNES that allowed users to draw and color pictures on a television screen. Unlike the pixel memory in Gussin’s invention, the pixel memory in the SNES system stored color pointers rather than actual color data. Gussin filed suit against Nintendo for infringing the ’335 patent. Gussin argued that the pixel-memory limitation in the patent claims encompassed the pixel memory of Nintendo’s SNES system and constituted infringement. Nintendo’s expert witnesses submitted declarations establishing that the SNES pixel memory stored color pointers rather than actual color data. The district court granted summary judgment for Nintendo. The court reasoned that there was no literal infringement or infringement under the doctrine of equivalents because the patent’s pixel-memory limitation required an accused device to have a pixel memory that stored actual color data. Gussin appealed the grant of summary judgment.