I’ve been reading Pacer Document 302, Defendants Response to e.Digital’s Opening Claim Construction Brief, and see a problem with one of their arguments. On page 25, Defendants argue that the microphone referenced in patent ‘774 receives and processes the sound electrical signals and there is nothing in the intrinsic evidence which supports e.Digital’s contention that “the received processed sound electrical signals” only exist after the sound electrical signals have passed through the control circuitry.

Sound is received as an input to the microphone. Electrical signals are the output of the microphone (i.e., the resultant processed sound). Sound doesn’t enter the control circuitry and conversely, electrical signals don’t enter the microphone.

The microphone element’s job is to receive and process (convert) sound into electrical signals; not to receive and process sound electrical signals. Furthermore, electrical signals from a microphone can’t be stored on a flash memory module. They need to be processed (compressed, digitized, etc) via the control circuitry before storage on a flash memory module. Why would we even have control circuitry if the microphone did the job of the control circuitry? If the microphone could fully process the sound for storage onto a flash memory module, we wouldn’t need the control circuitry. It is obvious that further processing, beyond that of a microphone, is needed before storage on a flash memory module is possible.

The Defendants' premise that the phrase “received processed sound electrical signals” means coming from the microphone would be redundant. With regard to the microphone output, “received processed sound” are electrical signals.

Therefore, “received processed sound electrical signals” clearly means electrical signals (sound received and processed by the microphone) that have been further processed by control circuitry and then received by the flash memory module for storage.