Fintiv, Inc. v. Paypal Holdings, Inc.

United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
FINTIV, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC.,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2023-2312
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Western District of Texas in No. 6:23-cv-00490-ADA, Judge
Alan D. Albright.
______________________
Decided: April 30, 2025
______________________
MEREDITH L EIGH MARTIN ADDY , AddyHart P.C., At-
lanta, GA, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented
by CHARLES A. P ANNELL , III; BENJAMIN C APPEL , Chicago,
IL; J ECEACA AN, Kasowitz Benson Torres LLP, New York,
NY; MARCUS BARBER , J OHN D OWNING, D ARCY L. J ONES ,
HEATHER K IM , T HUCMINH N GUYEN, J ONATHAN K.
WALDROP , Redwood Shores, CA; P AUL G UNTER WILLIAMS ,
Atlanta, GA.
ROBERT N. K ANG, Winston & Strawn LLP, San Fran-
cisco, CA, argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented
by EIMERIC REIG-P LESSIS ; N IMALKA R. WICKRAMASEKERA ,
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 2
Los Angeles, CA; BARRY K ENNETH SHELTON, Shelton Co-
burn LLP, Austin, TX.
______________________
Before P ROST , T ARANTO, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
P ROST , Circuit Judge.
Fintiv, Inc. (“Fintiv”) sued PayPal Holdings, Inc. (“Pay-
Pal”) for patent infringement in the U.S. District Court for
the Western District of Texas. Relevant here, Fintiv as-
serted U.S. Patent Nos. 9,892,386 (“the ’386 patent”),
11,120,413 (“the ’413 patent”), 9,208,488 (“the ’488 pa-
tent”), and 10,438,196 (“the ’196 patent”) (collectively, “the
asserted patents”). After claim construction, the district
court determined certain claim terms in the asserted pa-
tents were subject to 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 61 and held the as-
serted claims invalid as indefinite. Fintiv, Inc. v. PayPal
Holdings, Inc., No. 23-0490, 2023 WL 5423082 (W.D. Tex.
July 21, 2023) (“Claim Construction Order”). Fintiv ap-
peals. For the reasons below, we affirm the district court’s
indefiniteness determination.
BACKGROUND
The asserted patents generally relate to a “cloud-based
transaction system,” also referred to as a “‘monetary trans-
action system’, ‘mobile wallet platform’, ‘mobile wallet pro-
gram’, ‘mobile wallet transaction system’, ‘mobile financial
services (mFS) platform’ or ‘electronic payment system.’”
1 The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act (“AIA”) re-
named § 112 ¶¶ 2 and 6 as, respectively, § 112(b) and (f).
AIA, Pub. L. No. 112-29, sec. 4(c), 125 Stat. 284, 296 (2011).
Because the applications resulting in the asserted patents
were filed before September 16, 2012, we refer to the pre-
AIA version of § 112. See id. sec. 4(e), 125 Stat. at 297; see
also Media Rights Techs., Inc. v. Cap. One Fin. Corp., 800
F.3d 1366, 1371 n.1 (Fed. Cir. 2015).
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 3
’488 patent col. 6 ll. 30–35. The ’386 and ’413 patents share
a common specification and claim priority to provisional
applications filed on June 3, 2011, and August 10, 2011.
The ’488 and ’196 patents share a common specification
and claim priority to a provisional application filed on No-
vember 21, 2011. The specifications for all four asserted
patents are substantially similar.
The terms at issue are the payment-handler terms.2 As
relevant to this appeal, the payment-handler terms appear
as follows in the asserted claims:
a payment handler service operable to use [applica-
tion programming interfaces (“APIs”)] of different
payment processors including one or more APIs of
banks, credit and debit cards processors, bill pay-
ment processors.
’386 patent claims 1–3 (emphasis added).
a payment handler configured to use APIs of differ-
ent payment processors including one or more APIs
of banks, credit and debit cards processors, and bill
payment processors.
’413 patent claim 1 (emphasis added); see also id. claim
2 (similar).
a payment handler that exposes a common API for
interacting with different payment processors.
’488 patent claim 1 (emphasis added); ’196 patent claim
1 (same).
Aside from the claims, the only textual description of
the payment-handler terms in the asserted patents is
nearly identical to the claim language. See, e.g., ’386
2 For simplicity, we refer to the terms “payment han-
dler” and “payment handler service” in the asserted pa-
tents as “the payment-handler terms.”
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 4
patent col. 13 ll. 29–34 (“Payment handler 105 is config-
ured to wrap APIs of different payment processors, such as,
for example, banking accounts, credit/debit cards or proces-
sor 121. Payment handler 105 exposes a common API to
facilitate interactions with many different kinds of pay-
ment processors.” (emphasis in original)); ’413 patent
col. 14 ll. 8–13 (same); ’488 patent col. 10 ll. 4–9 (same);
’196 patent col. 10 ll. 21–26 (same). The payment-handler
terms also appear in Figures 1 and 20A–22J in the ’386 pa-
tent, Figures 1 and 20A–22J in the ’413 patent, Figure 1 in
the ’488 patent, and Figure 1 in the ’196 patent.
At claim construction, the district court ruled from the
bench that the payment-handler terms are indefinite.
J.A. 3489 (48:5–8). Fintiv filed a motion for reconsidera-
tion of the court’s construction of the payment-handler
terms. J.A. 3438–54. The court heard argument on Fin-
tiv’s motion for reconsideration and then issued a written
opinion denying Fintiv’s motion for reconsideration and
finding the asserted claims invalid due to indefiniteness.
In particular, the district court evaluated whether the pay-
ment-handler terms are means-plus-function terms subject
to § 112 ¶ 6 and, if so, whether the asserted patents’ speci-
fications disclose adequate corresponding structure to
avoid indefiniteness. Claim Construction Order, 2023 WL
5423082, at *7–10.
On the first issue, the district court found that the pay-
ment-handler terms invoke § 112 ¶ 6. The court first noted
that because the claim terms at issue do not use the word
“means,” a presumption exists that the claim terms do not
invoke § 112 ¶ 6. Id. at *7. It also noted that this presump-
tion can be overcome “by showing that the claim limitation
recites ‘function without reciting sufficient structure for
performing that function.’” Id. (quoting Williamson v. Cit-
rix Online, LLC, 792 F.3d 1339, 1349 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (en
banc in relevant part)). The court found that PayPal over-
came this presumption because the payment-handler
terms are “drafted in a format consistent with traditional
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 5
means-plus function limitations, and merely replaces the
term means with the term payment handler or payment
handler service.” Id. (cleaned up). It also found the “con-
necting terms, ‘that,’ ‘operable to,’ and ‘configured to,’ are
used to describe the function performed by the ‘payment
handler’ and ‘payment handler service,’” and “[t]hese terms
are consistently used by terms found to invoke section 112,
¶ 6, and do not themselves[] impart structure.” Id.
Next, the district court found that the specifications of
the asserted patents fail to disclose adequate structure cor-
responding to the claimed functions of “us[ing] APIs of dif-
ferent payment processors including one or more APIs of
banks, credit and debit cards processors, bill payment pro-
cessors” and “expos[ing] a common API for interacting with
different payment processors.” Id. at *9 (alterations in
original) (quoting ’386 patent claim 1; ’488 patent claim 1).
Specifically, the court found that the specifications “dis-
close no structure at all, much less an algorithm for per-
forming the recited functions.” Id. Accordingly, the court
held the claims at issue invalid as indefinite and entered
final judgment.
Fintiv timely appeals. We have jurisdiction under
28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).
D ISCUSSION
I
“Regarding questions of claim construction, including
whether claim language invokes [§ 112 ¶ 6], the district
court’s determinations based on evidence intrinsic to the
patent as well as its ultimate interpretations of the patent
claims are legal questions that we review de novo.” Wil-
liamson, 792 F.3d at 1346. “To the extent the district court,
in construing the claims, makes underlying findings of fact
based on extrinsic evidence, we review such findings of fact
for clear error.” Id.
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 6
Fintiv offers two main arguments on appeal—first,
that the district court erred in concluding that the pay-
ment-handler terms invoke § 112 ¶ 6; and second, that the
district court erred in concluding that the specifications fail
to disclose algorithmic structure for the claimed functions.
We address each argument in turn.
II
A
The first step of a § 112 ¶ 6 analysis is to determine
whether the claim term at issue is in means-plus-function
format. Egenera, Inc. v. Cisco Sys., Inc., 972 F.3d 1367,
1372–73 (Fed. Cir. 2020). The issue here is whether the
payment-handler terms invoke § 112 ¶ 6, which the district
court found they did. For the reasons below, we agree with
the district court.
Here, the payment-handler terms obviously do not use
the word “means.” Thus, there is a rebuttable presumption
that § 112 ¶ 6 does not apply. Williamson, 792 F.3d at
1348. That presumption “can be overcome and [§ 112 ¶ 6]
will apply if the challenger demonstrates that the claim
term fails to ‘recite[] sufficiently definite structure’ or else
recites ‘function without reciting sufficient structure for
performing that function.’” Id. (second alteration in origi-
nal) (quoting Watts v. XL Sys., Inc., 232 F.3d 877, 880
(Fed. Cir. 2000)); see also id. at 1349.
We agree with the district court that PayPal has over-
come this presumption because the payment-handler
terms recite function without reciting sufficient structure
for performing that function. Claim Construction Order,
2023 WL 5423082, at *7–8. The relevant claim language
of the ’386 and ’413 patents recites “a payment handler
[service] [operable/configured] to use APIs of different pay-
ment processors including one or more APIs of banks,
credit and debit cards processors, bill payment processors,”
’386 patent claims 1–3; ’413 patent claims 1–2, while the
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 7
’488 and ’196 patents recite “a payment handler that ex-
poses a common API for interacting with different payment
processors,” ’488 patent claim 1; ’196 patent claim 1. The
district court found that, like the claims in Williamson, the
payment-handler terms are “drafted in a format consistent
with traditional means-plus function limitations” and
“merely replace[] the term ‘means’ with the [payment-han-
dler terms].” Claim Construction Order, 2023 WL
5423082, at *7 (cleaned up) (quoting Williamson, 792 F.3d
at 1350). It also credited PayPal’s expert testimony that
the payment-handler terms “provide[ ] no structure beyond
a blank box, and critically, that a [person of ordinary skill
in the art (“POSA”)] would not have understood how to im-
plement the recited functions.” Id. at *8 (internal citation
omitted).
On appeal, Fintiv argues that both the “handler” terms
by themselves and the payment-handler terms as a whole
identify structure. Appellant’s Br. 20–33. We disagree.
The district court correctly analogized “handler” with
the nonce term “module,” which we have determined was
“simply a generic description of software or hardware that
performs a specified function.” Claim Construction Order,
2023 WL 5423082, at *8 (quoting Williamson, 792 F.3d at
1350). And in concluding that “handler” does not connote
sufficient structure to a POSA, the district court credited
technical dictionaries that demonstrated “that the term
‘handler’ does not impart any structure.” Id. at *7. As to
the prefix “payment,” the district court found that this pre-
fix does not impart structure onto “handler” and merely de-
scribes the function of the handler: to perform payment
functions. Id. The facts here are analogous to the facts in
Rain Computing, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics America,
Inc., where we concluded that “user identification module”
invokes § 112 ¶ 6. 989 F.3d 1002, 1006 (Fed. Cir. 2021).
The court reasoned that “the prefix ‘user identification’”
does not “impart structure because it merely describes the
function of the module: to identify a user,” so “the claim
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 8
language fails to provide any structure for performing the
claimed functions.” Id.
Fintiv also contends that extrinsic sources, such as the
Internet Open Trading Protocol (“IOTP”), support its argu-
ment that the payment-handler terms as a whole connote
structure. See, e.g., Appellant’s Br. 29–31; Reply Br. 17–20.
We disagree. The district court found that the IOTP sug-
gests that the payment-handler terms “can refer to many
different entities in a payment system with different struc-
tures.” Claim Construction Order, 2023 WL 5423082, at
*7. Thus, on this record, we agree with the district court
that “handler” alone and the payment-handler terms as a
whole fail to provide any structure for performing the
claimed functions. Cf. Advanced Ground Info. Sys., Inc. v.
Life360, Inc., 830 F.3d 1341, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“Irre-
spective of whether the terms ‘symbol’ and ‘generator’ are
terms of art in computer science, the combination of the
terms as used in the context of the relevant claim language
suggests that it is simply an abstraction that describes the
function being performed.”).
Fintiv next argues that the claims’ connecting terms—
“that,” “operable to,” and “configured to”—which appear in
the asserted claims are “more often used with structural
terms rather than non-structural ones.” Appellant’s Br. 25;
see also Reply Br. 2–3. Fintiv cites to four cases that use
identical or nearly identical connecting words as the as-
serted claims to support its argument. See Appellant’s Br.
25–26 (citing Dyfan, LLC v. Target Corp., 28 F.4th 1360,
1369–70 (Fed. Cir. 2022); Zeroclick LLC v. Apple Inc.,
891 F.3d 1003, 1006 (Fed. Cir. 2018); Apex Inc. v. Raritan
Comput., Inc., 325 F.3d 1364, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2003); Per-
sonalized Media Commc’ns, LLC v. ITC, 161 F.3d 696, 699,
705 (Fed. Cir. 1998)). Fintiv fails to meaningfully explain
how the connecting words in these cases that deal with dif-
ferent patents are dispositive here other than to state that
these connecting words are identical or nearly identical to
the connecting words in the asserted claims. In fact, we
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 9
have rejected the argument that the connecting term “con-
figured to” necessarily avoided means-plus-function claim-
ing. Rain Computing, 989 F.3d at 1006. Our case law does
not provide for a blanket rule that these connecting words
(i.e., “that,” “operable to,” and “configured to”) automati-
cally suggest terms are structural. As we have explained,
the applicability of § 112 ¶ 6 depends on the specific con-
text of the patent at issue. Williamson, 792 F.3d at
1350–51 & n.5; see also Advanced Ground, 830 F.3d at 1348
(analyzing whether a claim term is in means-plus-function
format by looking to the “combination of the terms as used
in the context of the relevant claim language” (emphasis
added)). The determination of whether the payment-han-
dler terms invoke § 112 ¶ 6 turns on how those terms are
used in the asserted patents. None of the cases cited by
Fintiv discuss the payment-handler terms, much less in
the context of the asserted patents. As with the claims in
Rain Computing, 989 F.3d at 1006, here, the purely func-
tional claim language reciting that the payment-handler
terms are configured or operated to complete an action pro-
vides no structure.
Fintiv also argues that our decision in Dyfan controls
here. Specifically, Fintiv argues that the payment-handler
terms are a class of software structures under Dyfan. We
disagree.
In Dyfan, the issue before our court was whether the
claim terms “code” and “application” were in means-plus-
function format. Because these terms did not include the
word “means,” there was a presumption that the terms
were not in means-plus-function format. We ultimately
held that the patent challenger failed to overcome this pre-
sumption. 28 F.4th at 1366–68. This court relied on the
unrebutted testimony from the patent challenger’s own ex-
pert testifying that a POSA would have (1) understood the
“code” / “application” limitations “connote a class of struc-
tures” and (2) known the recited claim functions could be
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 10
implemented using “off-the-shelf” code or applications. Id.
at 1367–68.
Fintiv relies on Dyfan to argue that § 112 ¶ 6 does not
apply because (1) certain dictionary definitions for “han-
dler” and “service” relate to software and (2) that software
is a definite class of structure. But Dyfan is distinguisha-
ble from the facts here. Unlike in Dyfan, where the expert’s
testimony that the term “code” / “application” connoted
software structure to a POSA was unrebutted, here, nei-
ther expert testified that the payment-handler terms con-
noted structure. See Claim Construction Order, 2023 WL
5423082, at *8. As used in the claims, the payment-han-
dler terms are no more than a “black box recitation of struc-
ture” that can operate as a substitute for “means,”
Williamson, 792 F.3d at 1350, and “a POSA would not have
understood how to implement the recited functions,” Claim
Construction Order, 2023 WL 5423082, at *8.
Fintiv next argues that the claim language defines the
“inputs, outputs, and operation of the ‘payment handler.’”
Appellant’s Br. 34–40. Fintiv cites to Apple Inc. v.
Motorola, Inc., 757 F.3d 1286 (Fed. Cir. 2014), to support
its argument, but that case is distinguishable from the
facts here. In Apple—a pre-Williamson case—“the claim
language and specification outline[d] the rules that the
[claim term] follow[ed],” so the claim language provided
sufficiently definite structure and the patent “recite[d] a
claim term with a known meaning.” Id. at 1303. In con-
trast, here, the claims and specifications, including the fig-
ures in the asserted patents, do not provide sufficiently
definite structure to the “inputs, outputs, connections, and
operation” of the payment-handler terms.3 In fact, the sole
3 Fintiv argues that the figures in the asserted pa-
tents show “the various process flows in and out of the pay-
ment handler and how it fit[s] within the broader system.”
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 11
textual support in the specifications for the payment-han-
dler terms merely parrots the claim language. See ’386 pa-
tent col. 13 ll. 29–34; ’413 patent col. 14 ll. 8–13; ’488
patent col. 10 ll. 4–9; ’196 patent col. 10 ll. 21–26.
We therefore affirm the district court’s conclusion—
based on the intrinsic evidence and extrinsic evidence—
that the payment-handler terms invoke § 112 ¶ 6.4
B
Having determined that the payment-handler terms
invoke § 112 ¶ 6, we proceed to the second step of the anal-
ysis: identifying the corresponding structure described in
the specification. “Structure disclosed in the specification
qualifies as corresponding structure if the intrinsic evi-
dence clearly links or associates that structure to the func-
tion recited in the claim.” Williamson, 792 F.3d at 1352
(cleaned up). And “[e]ven if the specification discloses cor-
responding structure, the disclosure must be of adequate
corresponding structure to achieve the claimed function.”
Id. (cleaned up). “If the function is performed by a general-
purpose computer or microprocessor, then the second step
generally further requires that the specification disclose
Appellant’s Br. 35. PayPal responds that “none of these
figures show how the payment handler ‘use[s] APIs of dif-
ferent payment processors’ or ‘exposes a common API for
interacting with different payment processors.’” Appellee’s
Br. 56 (emphasis in original). We agree with PayPal.
4 This appeal is not the first instance that we have
held a claim term with more than one word to invoke § 112
¶ 6. See, e.g., Media Rights, 800 F.3d at 1371–75 (“compli-
ance mechanism”); Advanced Ground, 830 F.3d at 1348
(“symbol generator”); Diebold Nixdorf, Inc. v. ITC, 899 F.3d
1291, 1297–302 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (“cheque standby unit”);
Rain Computing, 989 F.3d at 1005–07 (“user identification
module”).
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 12
the algorithm that the computer performs to accomplish
that function.” Rain Computing, 989 F.3d at 1007 (citation
omitted). And finally, the claims are indefinite if the spec-
ification fails to disclose adequate corresponding structure
to perform the claimed function. Traxcell Techs., LLC v.
Sprint Commc’ns Co., 15 F.4th 1121, 1134 (Fed. Cir. 2021)
(citing Williamson, 792 F.3d at 1351–52).
We agree with the district court that the asserted
claims “fail to disclose sufficient structure to perform the
functions of ‘us[ing] APIs of different payment processors
including one or more APIs of banks, credit and debit cards
processors, bill payment processors’ and ‘expos[ing] a com-
mon API for interacting with different payment proces-
sors.’” Claim Construction Order, 2023 WL 5423082, at *9
(alterations in original) (quoting ’386 patent claim 1; ’488
patent claim 1). In particular, the district court found that
the specifications of the asserted patents do not disclose
any algorithm to perform the recited function. The court
explained that the specifications “merely refer[] to the ge-
neric process of translating APIs,” and a POSA would not
understand where the wrapping of the APIs occur. Id. It
found that “there is significant ambiguity in the specifica-
tion,” and a POSA “would not understand to what entity
the payment handler’s ‘common API’ is exposed.” Id.
On appeal, Fintiv argues that the asserted patents
identify a two-step algorithm for a payment handler:
(1) “wrap[s] APIs of different payment processors, such as,
for example banks . . .” and (2) “exposes a common API to
facilitate interactions with many different kinds of pay-
ment processors.” Appellant’s Br. 45 (cleaned up). We dis-
agree. Fintiv’s purported two-step algorithm merely
recites the asserted claims’ language. The specifications do
not provide additional disclosures other than reciting the
function of the payment-handler terms using generic terms
without providing any details about an algorithm to carry
out the functions of using APIs of different payment pro-
cessors including one or more APIs of banks, credit and
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FINTIV, INC. v. PAYPAL HOLDINGS, INC. 13
debit cards processors, bill payment processors, and expos-
ing a common API for interacting with different payment
processors.5 We have held that describing “the results of
the operation of an unspecified algorithm” is not sufficient
to transform the disclosure of a general-purpose computer
into the disclosure of sufficient structure to satisfy § 112
¶ 6. Aristocrat Techs. Austl. Pty Ltd. v. Int’l Game Tech.,
521 F.3d 1328, 1335 (Fed. Cir. 2008). Without an algo-
rithm to achieve these functionalities—and, more gener-
ally, given the specifications’ failure to disclose adequate
corresponding structure—we hold the payment-handler
terms indefinite.
CONCLUSION
We have considered Fintiv’s remaining arguments and
find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we af-
firm.
AFFIRMED
5 Fintiv also argues that the proper function being
performed by the payment-handler terms is “interacting
with different payment processors.” Reply Br. 21. We dis-
agree. Fintiv’s characterization of the claimed functions is
too broad and not supported by the claim language, which
requires exposing a common API and using APIs of differ-
ent payment processors.
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