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Last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit issued an opinion in <a href="https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1253.OPINION.10-21-2025_2590588.pdf?utm_source=chatgpt.com">Rothschild Connected Devices Innovations, LLC v. Coca-Cola Company, No. 2024-1253 (Oct. 21, 2025)</a>, affirming a finding of summary judgment of no literal infringement of Claim 11 of U.S. Patent No. 8,417,377.

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Claim 11 claims a beverage dispenser with several components, including a “communication module” reciting the functional limitations that the module is configured to (1) transmit the user identity and beverage identifier to a server; (2) receive from the server “user generated beverage product preferences based on” that identity and identifier; and (3) communicate those preferences to a controller. The district court read this sequence as ordered and granted summary judgment of noninfringement in favor of Coca-Cola. Rothschild appealed.

The Federal Circuit affirmed. The Court explained that “[a]lthough a particular order of method steps is typically not required unless the steps actually recite one, ‘such a result can ensue when the method steps implicitly require that they be performed in the order written.’” Applying a two-part test for evaluating ordered steps, the Court looked first to the claim language and determined that logic and grammar compelled an ordered sequence of the functional limitations of the claimed communication module. The second function—receiving preferences “based on” the identity and identifier—presupposes the transmission of that information in the first function. Similarly, the third function—communicating “the user generated beverage product preferences”—presupposes receipt of those preferences in the second function. The specification and figures reinforced this flow and did not suggest an alternative order for the functional limitations.

Rothschild argued that “[C]laim 11 is an apparatus claim, and because ‘apparatus claims cover what a device is, not what a device does,’ the claim cannot require ordered steps.” The Court disagreed, explaining that “when, as here, an apparatus claim “depend[s] on functional claiming to describe the apparatus, ‘what the device does (and how it does it) is highly relevant to understanding what the device is.” The ordered nature of the “communication module” functions thus defined the claimed configuration and, necessarily, the scope of infringement. For patentees, the decision is a reminder that functional claim drafting—even in apparatus claims—often imports logical ordering without express temporal language.

CAFC Affirms Noninfringement of Apparatus Claim with Ordered Functional Limitations

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