United States District Court, W.D. North Carolina, Charlotte Division
ORDER
FRANK
D. WHITNEY, CHIEF UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
THIS
MATTER is before the Court on the parties' Claim
Construction Briefing (Docs. Nos. 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20).
The parties' respective positions have been fully
briefed, and the Court heard argument and received evidence
during a hearing on June 6, 2019, at 2:00 p.m. in Courtroom
#1-1 of the Charles R. Jones Federal Building, 401 W. Trade
Street, Charlotte, NC 28202.
“[T]he
construction of a patent, including terms of art within its
claim, is exclusively within the province of the
court.” Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc.,
517 U.S. 370, 372, 116 S.Ct. 1384, 1387, 134 L.Ed.2d 577
(1996). A patent describes “the exact scope of an
Invention and its manufacture to ‘secure to [the
patentee] all to which he is entitled, [and] to apprise the
public of what is still open to them.'”
Id. at 373 (citation omitted). The claims of a
patent define the patented invention to which the patentee is
entitled the right to exclude. Id., at 373-374;
Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312 (Fed.Cir.
2005) (en Banc) (citations omitted).
“It
is well-settled that, in interpreting an asserted claim, the
court should look first to the intrinsic evidence of record,
i.e., the patent itself, including the claims, the
specification and, if in evidence, the prosecution history.
Such intrinsic evidence is the most significant source of the
legally operative meaning of disputed claim language.”
Vitronics Corp. v. Conceptronic, Inc., 90 F.3d 1576,
1582 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (citation omitted). The court should
generally give the disputed claim terms their “ordinary
and customary meaning, ” which is “the meaning
that the term would have to a person of ordinary skill in the
art in question at the time of the invention, i.e., as of the
effective filing date of the patent application.”
Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312, 1313
(Fed. Cir. 2005). A person of ordinary skill in the art is
deemed to read the claim terms not only in the context of the
particular claims in which the disputed terms appear, but
also in the context of the entire patent. Id. at
1313.
When
proper construction of a claim term remains unclear after
consideration of intrinsic evidence, courts may consider
extrinsic evidence including expert testimony, inventor
testimony, learned treatises and other sources. Phillips
v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312-13 (Fed. Cir. 2005).
Courts may need “to consult extrinsic evidence in order
to understand . . . the background science or the meaning of
a term in the relevant art during the relevant time
period.” Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, Inc. v. Sandoz,
Inc., 135 S.Ct. 831, 841 (2015). Courts have broad
discretion to consult extrinsic evidence such as
dictionaries, technical treatises, and expert testimony.
Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F.3d 967,
980 (Fed. Cir. 1995). “[T]he context of the surrounding
words of the claim also must be considered in determining the
ordinary and customary meaning of those terms.”
Brookhill-Wilk 1, LLC v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc.,
334 F.3d 1294, 1299 (Fed. Cir. 2003).
“It
is critical for trial courts to set forth an express
construction of the material claim terms in dispute, in part
because the claim construction becomes the basis of the jury
instructions, should the case go to trial.” AFG.
Indus. v. Cardinal IG Co., 239 F.3d 1239, 1247 (Fed.
Cir. 2001).
Bearing
these principles in mind and applying them to the record
before the Court, the parties' disputed claim terms are
hereby construed as follows:
-
CLAIM TERM
|
COURT'S CONSTRUCTION
|
“animal”
|
“any living thing that is not a human, a
plant, an insect, a bird, or a fish”
|
“central portion”
|
“portion at, in, or near the center”
|
“first side”
“second side”
|
“a first lateral part or area of something
identified by its position in relation to a
reference point”
“a second lateral part or area of something
identified by its position in relation to a
reference point”
|
“first flap”
“second flap”
|
“a first portion of the garment that includes
a free end”
“a second portion of the garment that
includes a free end”
|
“extending … from”
|
“continuing for a particular distance or in a
particular direction”
|
“substantially perpendicular”
|
“approximately, near, or at a right
angle”
|
“third flap”
|
“a third portion of the garment that includes
a free end”
|
“proximal end”
|
“the nearer of two ends”
|
IT
...