## Facts

- Fitness Gaming Corporation (Fitness) owned a patent directed to a system that combined exercise equipment with an electronic gambling (game-of-chance) device.
- Fitness sued Icon Health & Fitness, Inc. (Icon) in federal district court for patent infringement, alleging that Icon’s exercise products infringed Fitness’s patent.
- Fitness’s infringement theories focused on whether Icon’s accused exercise machines, consoles, or related components satisfied the patent’s requirement of an electronic gambling/game-of-chance device used in conjunction with exercise equipment.
- During the case, the parties disputed how to interpret the patent claims and how those claims mapped onto the accused products.
- Icon moved for summary judgment, arguing that Fitness lacked evidence to prove one or more required claim limitations and that no reasonable jury could find infringement on the record presented.
- In resolving the motion, the court set out the framework a district court uses to analyze a patent-infringement claim at summary judgment.

## Issues

1. What analytical steps must a district court apply when deciding a patent-infringement claim on summary judgment?
2. On the summary-judgment record, did Fitness raise a genuine dispute of material fact that Icon’s accused products met the asserted patent-claim limitations, including the claimed electronic gambling/game-of-chance device used with exercise equipment?

## Decision

- The court granted Icon’s motion for summary judgment.
- The court applied the standard infringement framework, explaining that infringement requires proof that every claim limitation is present in the accused product (either literally or under an applicable doctrine).
- On the evidence presented, Fitness did not show a triable issue that Icon’s accused exercise equipment included the claimed electronic gambling/game-of-chance device (or otherwise met all required limitations of the asserted claims).
- Because Fitness failed to produce sufficient evidence on at least one required claim element, the court entered judgment for Icon.

## Legal Principles

- Patent infringement analysis generally involves two steps: (1) construing the asserted claim terms as a matter of law, and (2) comparing the properly construed claims to the accused device or method.
- A patentee must prove infringement by showing that the accused product includes every limitation of at least one asserted claim; missing even one limitation defeats infringement.
- Summary judgment is appropriate when, after applying the governing claim construction and viewing the evidence in the nonmovant’s favor, no reasonable factfinder could find infringement.
- Claim construction relies first on intrinsic evidence (claim language, specification, and prosecution history); extrinsic materials may assist but cannot contradict the intrinsic record.
- Conclusory infringement assertions, including unsupported opinion testimony, do not by themselves create a genuine dispute of material fact sufficient to defeat summary judgment.

## Conclusion

In Fitness Gaming Corp. v. Icon Health & Fitness, the court addressed a patent dispute involving exercise equipment allegedly combined with an electronic gambling/game-of-chance device and granted summary judgment for Icon, concluding that Fitness did not produce evidence sufficient to create a triable issue that Icon’s accused products satisfied all required claim limitations.


Fitness Gaming Corp. v. Icon Health & Fitness, 2011 U.S. Dist. Lexis 90605 (2011)