Inline wins claim construction appeal at CAFC

Judge Newman began the opinion:


Inline Plastics Corporation sued EasyPak, LLC for infringement
of United States Patent No. 7,118,003 (the
’003 patent) and No. 7,073,680 (the ’680 patent), directed
to tamper-resistant plastic food containers. Following the
district court’s claim construction, Inline moved for entry
of final judgment of non-infringement of its ’003 patent,
on the premise that the claims as construed are not
infringed. Inline also granted EasyPak a covenant not to
sue on the ’680 patent. The district court then entered
final judgment of non-infringement of the ’003 patent,
dismissed without prejudice EasyPak’s declaratory judgment
counterclaims for invalidity, and dismissed Inline’s
count for infringement of the ’680 patent with prejudice.1

Inline appeals the district court’s construction of the
claims of the ’003 patent, stating that the terms “frangible
section” and “tamper evident bridge” were incorrectly
construed. We conclude that, on the facts and specification
of the ’003 patent, the district court erred in limiting
the claims to a specific embodiment, for the invention as
claimed is supported by the patent’s broader disclosure.
We vacate the judgment of non-infringement of the ’003
patent, and remand for determination of infringement in
accordance with the corrected claim construction.



The argument of Inline:



Applying these criteria, Inline argues that “frangible
section” was incorrectly construed as requiring at least
two score lines at the hinge. Inline states that “frangible
section” should be construed to mean a “section of material
that includes at least one score line or at least one
perforation line.” Inline points out that nothing in the
specification, the prosecution history, or the prior art
limits “frangible section” by the number of score lines by
which the frangible section is severed.

(...)

Despite this explicit disclosure of an alternative single
score line, the district court limited “frangible section” to
require at least two score lines. No prior art or prosecution
argument underlays this limitation. The district
court referred only to the frequency with which the specification
described the frangible section as having two
score lines that form a severable strip.
Here, the preferred embodiment is not described as
having certain unique characteristics of patentable distinction
from other disclosed embodiments. Nor are other
embodiments inadequately described in relation to the
principles of the invention. Absent such traditional
aspects of restrictive claim construction, the patentee is
entitled to claim scope commensurate with the invention
that is described in the specification. See Phillips v. AWH
Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1313 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“[A]lthough
the specification often describes very specific embodiments
of the invention, we have repeatedly warned
against confining the claims to those embodiments.”).

(...)

The patent examiner placed no emphasis on the number
of severable lines. In allowing the claims, the examiner
explained: “The container also includes a tamper
evident feature, such as a tear strip, connecting the cover
portion to the base portion.” App. No. 10/895,687, Final
Rejection 2 (June 19, 2006). There is no discussion in the
specification or the prosecution history of any patentability
reliance on the number of score lines by which the
frangible section is severed



The bottom line


Thus we correct the district court’s claim construction,
and construe “frangible section” to mean “a section of
material that includes at least one score line or at least
one perforation line.”

(...)

We have corrected the claim construction, whereby
claims 1 and 2 are not restricted to the presence of at
least two score lines or perforation lines. On this claim
construction, the judgment of non-infringement of the ’003
patent cannot stand. We vacate that judgment,



link: http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-orders/14-1305.Opinion.8-24-2015.1.PDF