Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-13-01576/USCOURTS-ca13-13-01576-1/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 830
Nature of Suit: Patent
Cause of Action: 

---

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC.,

Plaintiff/Counterclaim Defendant-Appellant

MEDTRONIC SOFAMOR DANEK USA, INC.,

Counterclaim Defendant-Appellant

MEDTRONIC PUERTO RICO OPERATIONS CO., 

MEDTRONIC SOFAMOR DANEK DEGGENDORF, 

GMBH,

Counterclaim Defendants

v.

NUVASIVE, INC.,

Defendant/Counterclaimant-Cross-Appellant

______________________ 

2013-1576, 2013-1577

______________________ 

Appeals from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of California in No. 08-CV-1512, Judge 

Cathy Ann Bencivengo.

______________________ 

Decided: June 3, 2016

______________________ 

LUKE DAUCHOT, Kirkland & Ellis LLP, Los Angeles, 

CA, for plaintiff/counterclaim defendant-appellant, counCase: 13-1576 Document: 105-2 Page: 1 Filed: 06/03/2016
2 WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 

terclaim defendant-appellant. Also represented by 

ALEXANDER FRASER MACKINNON, NIMALKA R.

WICKRAMASEKERA, SHARRE LOTFOLLAHI; JOHN C. O’QUINN,

LIAM PATRICK HARDY, JASON M. WILCOX, WILLIAM H.

BURGESS, Washington, DC.

DEANNE MAYNARD, Morrison & Foerster LLP, Washington, DC, for defendant/counterclaimant-crossappellant. Also represented by BRIAN ROBERT MATSUI; 

RYAN MALLOY, Los Angeles, CA; FRANK SCHERKENBACH, 

Fish & Richardson, P.C., Boston, MA; CRAIG E.

COUNTRYMAN, MICHAEL ARI AMON, TODD GLEN MILLER, 

San Diego, CA; MICHAEL J. KANE, Minneapolis, MN; PAUL 

DAVID TRIPODI II, Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati, 

P.C., Los Angeles, CA; MICHAEL T. ROSATO, Seattle, WA. 

______________________ 

Before LOURIE, DYK, and REYNA, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the court filed by Circuit Judge DYK. 

Concurring opinion filed by Circuit Judge REYNA. 

DYK, Circuit Judge. 

This case returns to this court on vacatur and remand 

from the Supreme Court, “for further consideration in 

light of Commil USA, LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., [135 S.

Ct. 1920 (2015)].” Medtronic Sofamor Danek USA, Inc. v. 

NuVasive, Inc., 136 S. Ct. 893 (2016) (Mem.). On remand, 

we reaffirm the district court’s judgment with respect to 

U.S. Patent No. 7,470,236 (“the ’236 patent”) and reinstate our earlier judgment in other respects. 

BACKGROUND

The vacated decision, Warsaw Orthopedic, Inc. v. 

NuVasive, Inc., 778 F.3d 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2015), began as a 

patent infringement suit by Warsaw Orthopedic, Inc. and 

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WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 3

a related company, Medtronic Sofamor Danek USA, Inc., 

(“MSD”)1 against NuVasive, Inc. (“NuVasive”). NuVasive 

counterclaimed for infringement of its patent, U.S. Patent 

No. 7,470,236 (“the ’236 patent”). Only our decision with 

respect to the ’236 patent is affected by the Supreme 

Court’s remand. That aspect of our decision affirmed a 

jury verdict of infringement, holding that the asserted 

claims of NuVasive’s ’236 patent were directly infringed 

by users of MSD’s “NIM-Eclipse” device and that MSD 

induced this infringement. Id. at 1369, 1373, 1379. 

Our opinion issued on March 2, 2015. The Supreme 

Court decided Commil shortly thereafter, on May 26, 

2015. 135 S. Ct. at 1920. MSD subsequently petitioned 

for certiorari in this case, requesting that the Court grant 

certiorari, vacate, and remand (“GVR”) on the basis that 

our court did not correctly apply the test for induced 

infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271(b) articulated in 

Commil and the Court’s earlier decision in Global-Tech 

Appliances, Inc. v. SEB S.A., 563 U.S. 754 (2011). MSD 

contended that while the jury had been properly instructed as to the standard of induced infringement set out in 

Commil, NuVasive had failed to prove that MSD had the 

requisite knowledge to induce infringement. MSD did not 

raise any issue concerning a belief in patent invalidity, 

the Supreme Court in Commil having held that a belief in 

patent invalidity is not a defense to inducement. 135 S. 

Ct. at 1928. The Supreme Court granted certiorari and 

issued its GVR order on January 19, 2016.

 We recalled our mandate and reopened the case on 

March 3, 2016. We requested supplemental briefing from 

 

1 For simplicity, we refer to Warsaw Orthopedic, 

Inc. and Medtronic Sofamor Danek USA, Inc. collectively 

as “MSD.” 

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4 WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 

MSD and NuVasive on “the question of what action this 

court should take on remand from the Supreme Court ‘for 

further consideration in light of Commil . . . .’” March 2, 

2016, Order, ECF No. 93. We now consider what action is 

appropriate in this case in light of the Supreme Court’s

remand. 

DISCUSSION

I 

The only question here is whether there was substantial evidence for the jury to conclude that MSD induced 

infringement of NuVasive’s ’236 patent. The Supreme 

Court’s decision in Commil reaffirmed and clarified the 

Court’s earlier decision in Global-Tech on the standard for 

inducement under § 271(b) but did not change the law. 

See Commil, 135 S. Ct. at 1927–28. Commil, like GlobalTech, held that proof of induced infringement requires not 

“only knowledge of the patent” but also “proof the defendant knew the [induced] acts were infringing.” Id. at 1926, 

1928. Commil, in reaffirming Global-Tech, also necessarily reaffirmed that willful blindness can satisfy the 

knowledge requirement for active inducement under 

§ 271(b) (and for contributory infringement under 

§ 271(c)), even in the absence of actual knowledge. Global-Tech, 131 S. Ct. at 2070. 

Global-Tech also held that knowledge of infringement 

can be inferred from circumstantial evidence. Id. at 

2071–72. In this respect, Global-Tech affirmed the Supreme Court’s and our court’s earlier precedents, which 

held that the “requisite intent to induce infringement may 

be inferred from all of the circumstances.” Broadcom 

Corp. v. Qualcomm Inc., 543 F.3d 683, 699 (Fed. Cir. 

2008) (quoting Water Techs. Corp. v. Calco, Ltd., 850 F.2d 

660, 669 (Fed. Cir. 1988)); see also MGM Studios Inc. v. 

Grokster, Ltd., 545 U.S. 913, 936, 939–940 (2005) (applying the inducement standard of patent law in a copyright 

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WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 5

context and holding that circumstantial evidence demonstrated an “unmistakable” “unlawful objective” to induce 

infringement); Lucent Techs., Inc., v. Gateway, Inc., 580 

F.3d 1301, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (“A plaintiff 

may . . . prove the intent element through circumstantial 

evidence, just as with direct infringement . . . .”); Fuji 

Photo Film Co., Ltd. v. Jazz Photo Corp., 394 F.3d 1368, 

1377 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (“A patentee may prove intent 

through circumstantial evidence.”); Water Techs., 850 

F.2d at 660 (“While proof of intent is necessary, direct 

evidence is not required; rather, circumstantial evidence 

may suffice.”). 

II

The ’236 patent is directed to a method for detecting 

the presence of and measuring distance to a nerve during 

surgery. Warsaw, 778 F.3d at 1372. The patented method requires sending a series of electrical pulses that 

gradually increase in strength until a pulse reaches 

sufficient strength to elicit a nerve response. Id. Proximity to the nearest nerve is proportional to the strength of 

the pulse that elicited the response. Id. NuVasive asserted claims 1, 5, and 9 of the ’236 patent, of which claim 

1 is representative. Claim 1 is reproduced in full in our 

earlier opinion, id., but only one limitation, the “stopping” 

step, is relevant to this case on remand. The “stopping” 

step of claim 1 is step (c), which requires “increasing the 

intensity level of said stimulus signal until said predetermined neuro-muscular response is elicited by said 

stimulus pulse and stopping the emission of said stimulus 

signal immediately after said predetermined neuromuscular response is detected.” ’236 patent col. 17 ll. 56–

60. In the earlier appeal we held that substantial evidence supported the jury’s finding of direct infringement 

of claim 1 of the ’236 patent by surgeons using MSD’s 

device, the “NIM-Eclipse.” Id. at 1373. That determination is not reopened by the Supreme Court’s remand. 

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6 WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 

The district court concluded that the “stopping” step—

specifically, the claim term, “stopping the emission of said 

stimulus signal immediately after said predetermined 

neuro-muscular response is detected”—did not need to be 

construed and consequently did not provide the jury with 

any construction (although the court did construe the 

embedded term “stimulus signal,” as discussed below). In 

determining whether the NIM-Eclipse met the “stopping” 

step, the jury was required to apply the “plain meaning to 

a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the 

invention.” J.A. 206. 

There is no dispute that the jury was correctly instructed as to the standard for induced infringement 

under Global-Tech (and Commil). The jury was instructed that it was NuVasive’s burden to prove that “the 

alleged infringer knew or was willfully blind to the fact 

that the induced acts constituted patent infringement of 

at least one patent claim,” in addition to the other elements of induced infringement. J.A. 213. MSD does not 

dispute that the jury was correctly instructed as to the 

relevant claim limitations of the ’236 patent and as to

NuVasive’s burden to prove infringement by a preponderance of the evidence. 

Thus, the question before us now is a limited one: 

whether the jury was presented with substantial evidence 

that MSD knew (or was willfully blind to the fact) that it 

was instructing doctors to infringe the ’236 patent. MSD 

acknowledges that its “challenge is to the sufficiency of the 

evidence that it indirectly infringed.” Appellants’ Supp. 

Br. at 14. In the earlier appeal we did not address that

question explicitly, stating only that “[t]here was evidence 

that MSD was aware of the patent prior to the litigation 

and that MSD specifically taught doctors to use the 

product during the surgical procedures in an infringing 

manner.” Warsaw, 778 F.3d at 1373. We now address the

question. We must sustain the jury’s verdict if there was 

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WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 7

substantial evidence before the jury to support an inference that MSD knew (or was willfully blind to the fact) 

that doctors’ use of its device infringed the ’236 patent. 

III 

MSD argues that no reasonable jury could have inferred from the evidence before it that MSD had 

knowledge of (or was willfully blind to) its customers’ 

infringement of the ’236 patent. However, here we conclude that there was substantial evidence that MSD’s 

infringement position was objectively unreasonable and 

that the jury, based on this evidence, could reasonably 

have concluded that MSD had knowledge (or was willfully 

blind to the fact) that it was infringing. 

The central premise of MSD’s non-infringement position is that it reasonably construed narrowly the “stopping” limitation of the claims of the ’236 patent to require 

a complete termination of emission of any and all electrical pulses. “Stopping the emission of the signal thus 

means the electrode – i.e., the device – must stop emitting 

any signal, which indisputably is not what occurs when a 

NIM-Eclipse device detects a nerve.” Appellants’ Supp. 

Br. at 10. After the NIM-Eclipse emits a stimulus signal 

that detects a nerve, it continues emitting electrical 

pulses at a lower energy rather than stopping emission of 

all electrical signals. MSD argues that this property of 

the NIM-Eclipse led MSD to believe that the device did 

not infringe the ’236 patent. 

But on its face, claim 1 of the ’236 patent says something different. Claim 1 requires “stopping the emission 

of said stimulus signal immediately after said predetermined neuro-muscular response is detected.” ’236 patent 

col. 17 ll. 58–60. That is, claim 1 requires stopping a 

particular kind of signal, “said stimulus signal,” and does 

not require stopping any and all electrical signals emitted 

by the device.

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8 WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 

At the district court, both parties agreed that “a stimulus signal” is a signal able to elicit a neuromuscular 

response (i.e., a nerve response). MSD asked the district 

court to construe “stimulus signal” to mean “a signal that 

can stimulate.” J.A. 1871 (MSD’s Responsive Claim 

Construction Brief). MSD expressly explained that, under 

its construction, a stimulus signal is one capable of stimulating a nerve. “Per Medtronic’s construction, ‘a signal 

that can stimulate,’ a stimulus signal is able to elicit a 

response to detect nerve proximity, but does not cease 

being a ‘stimulus signal’ merely because it is not currently 

eliciting a response . . . .” J.A. 1871 (emphasis added). 

NuVasive requested a similar construction, “an electrical 

signal for eliciting a neuromuscular response,” which the 

district court adopted. J.A. 21–22 (District Court’s 

Markman Order). MSD’s Responsive Claim Construction 

Brief emphasized its agreement that a “stimulus signal” 

is a signal capable of eliciting a nerve response. “In 

NuVasive’s words, ‘not every signal is an electrical signal . . . and not every stimulation can cause a neuromuscular response.’ Medtronic agrees, and its construction of this term does not contradict these assertions.” 

J.A. 1871 (quoting NuVasive’s Opening Claim Construction Brief). The jury was properly instructed to construe 

“stimulus signal” according to the district court’s construction to mean “an electrical signal for eliciting a 

neuromuscular response.” J.A. 208. 

The language of claim 1 clearly requires stopping the 

emission not of any or all stimulus signals but of one 

particular stimulus signal: “said stimulus signal,” the 

signal that triggered a response from the nerve being 

probed. As MSD itself put it, “[t]he claim language ‘said’ 

means that the ‘stimulus signal’ and ‘predetermined 

neuromuscular response’ elements modified by ‘said’ are 

the same signal and response referenced earlier in the 

claim.” J.A. 1872 (MSD’s Responsive Claim Construction 

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Brief). In MSD’s words, under “the very clear language of 

claim 1,” “the steps contemplate emission of one signal to 

elicit one neuro-muscular response, with that same signal 

stopping upon the detection of that response.” Id.

MSD’s claim is that the “stopping” limitation requires

total cessation of any and all electrical stimulus pulses 

emitted by the nerve-monitoring device. It insists that 

“[s]topping the emission of the signal thus means the 

electrode – i.e., the device – must stop emitting any signal.” Appellants’ Supp. Br. at 10. This theory is clearly 

inconsistent with the construction of “said stimulus 

signal” that MSD itself propounded. 

MSD also argues that the prosecution history of the 

’236 patent, which was before the jury, supports MSD’s 

interpretation of the “stopping” step and its theory that 

the jury could not have found the knowledge (or willful 

blindness) necessary for induced infringement. The 

prosecution history here does not help MSD. The prosecution history shows that NuVasive amended the claims 

of the application that became the ’236 patent to overcome 

the examiner’s obviousness rejection over a prior art 

reference, U.S. Patent No. 5,284,153 (“Raymond ’153”), by 

adding the “stopping” limitation. Raymond ’153 describes 

a method of probing a nerve at a constant level of stimulation, thereby eliciting multiple neuromuscular responses 

from the same nerve. Raymond ’153 col. 3 ll. 29–35. 

NuVasive argued that its method, with the “stopping” 

step, provided increased safety compared to Raymond ’153 

because NuVasive’s method avoided overstimulation of 

the nerve:

Claim 15 [which became claim 1 of the ’236 patent] 

has also been amended to reflect that the emission 

of the stimulus signal is immediately stopped after 

the predetermined neuro-muscular response is detected. This is a safety mechanism designed to reCase: 13-1576 Document: 105-2 Page: 9 Filed: 06/03/2016
10 WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 

move the stimulation of the spinal nerve during the 

processing time required to communicate the intensity level to a user . . . . This avoids the unnecessary stimulation found, for example, in the 

Raymond ’153 reference. . . . [Raymond ’153] does 

not stop the stimulation altogether, as found in 

claim 15, and thus subjects the nerve to unnecessary stimulation that may result in irritation 

and/or damage over time. 

J.A. 2895 (NuVasive’s Amendment and Remarks of October 12, 2007). Contrary to MSD’s argument, the prosecution history thus demonstrates that “stopping” refers to 

stoppage of the stimulus signal capable of eliciting a 

neuromuscular response, not necessarily stoppage of any 

and all electrical stimulus. 

In short, there is no support in the language of claim 

1 of the ’236 patent or its prosecution history to support 

MSD’s position that infringement of the “stopping” limitation requires complete termination of any and all electrical stimulus pulses from a nerve-probing device. Claim 1 

recites “stopping the emission of said stimulus signal,” not 

stopping the emission of all electrical signals. 

In any event, MSD’s effort at this late stage amounts 

to a request for a revised claim construction that it never 

sought. That is improper, as we previously ruled in our 

earlier opinion. Warsaw, 778 F.3d at 1373 (citing 

Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Mustek Sys., Inc., 340 F.3d 1314, 

1321 (Fed. Cir. 2003)). Moreover, claim construction is, of 

course, ultimately a question of law that must be left to 

the court, not the jury. Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, 

Inc., 135 S. Ct. 831, 837 (2015). We have previously held 

that it is improper for juries to hear conflicting expert 

testimony on the correctness of a claim construction, 

given the risk of confusion. CytoLogix Corp. v. Ventana 

Med. Sys., Inc., 424 F.3d 1168, 1172 (Fed. Cir. 2005); see 

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WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 11

also Sundance, Inc. v. DeMonte Fabricating Ltd., 550 F.3d 

1356, 1364 n.6 (Fed. Cir. 2009). 

IV

Turning to the issue that is properly before us, undisputed evidence before the jury showed that, immediately 

after nerve stimulation, the NIM-Eclipse reduced the 

strength of the electrical stimulus pulses it emitted to a 

level that was not capable of stimulating the nerve that 

had provided the neuromuscular response. In other 

words, the “said stimulus signal” emitted by the NIMEclipse was stopped immediately after the neuromuscular 

response was detected. 

MSD does not dispute that whenever the NIM-Eclipse

device emits a “stimulus signal” at the threshold intensity 

sufficient to elicit a nerve response, the next pulse is 

emitted at lower intensity. As such, the record shows that 

“said stimulus signal” as construed by the court—the 

electrical signal for eliciting a neuromuscular response, 

capable of stimulating the nerve being probed—“stops” 

immediately after the response is detected, just as the 

claims of the ’236 patent require. This evidence was 

before the jury, and the jury could reasonably have concluded that MSD had the requisite knowledge of infringement. 

 Given the strength of the evidence NuVasive presented, a reasonable jury could have concluded that MSD 

must have known that its NIM-Eclipse device “stopped” 

emitting “said stimulus signal” immediately after that 

signal elicited a neuromuscular response. MSD’s 

knowledge of the ’236 patent is undisputed. As such, 

under these circumstances, a reasonable jury could have 

concluded that MSD’s non-infringement position was 

objectively unreasonable and that MSD must have known 

that NIM-Eclipse meets the limitations of the claims of 

the ’236 patent. A reasonable jury could therefore have 

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12 WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 

inferred that MSD must have known, or was willfully 

blind to the fact, that doctors using the device infringe 

those claims.2 

CONCLUSION

 We again affirm the district court’s judgment of 

January 26, 2012, with respect to direct and indirect 

infringement of the ’236 patent. In view of that judgment, 

we also affirm the district court’s June 10, 2013, award of 

an ongoing royalty to be paid by MSD to NuVasive for 

post-verdict sales of the NIM-Eclipse device. We reinstate 

our earlier judgment with respect to NuVasive’s infringement of MSD’s patents, which was unaffected by the 

Supreme Court’s GVR order. Warsaw, 778 F.3d at 1379. 

AFFIRMED-IN-PART, VACATED-IN-PART, AND 

REMANDED-IN-PART

COSTS

Costs to NuVasive. 

 

2 The concurrence expresses concern that the majority opinion could be read to suggest “that any time a 

defendant’s products are found to directly infringe, the 

plaintiff has sufficiently established the defendant’s

intent to induce infringement.” Concurrence at 4. To be 

clear, we do not suggest that inducement liability is that 

broad. To show the intent to induce infringement, it is 

sufficient that the plaintiff establish that a defendant’s 

asserted belief in non-infringement was unreasonable. 

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United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC.,

Plaintiff/Counterclaim Defendant-Appellant,

AND

MEDTRONIC SOFAMOR DANEK USA, INC.,

Counterclaim Defendant-Appellant,

AND

MEDTRONIC PUERTO RICO OPERATIONS CO. 

AND

MEDTRONIC SOFAMOR DANEK DEGGENDORF, 

GMBH,

Counterclaim Defendants,

v.

NUVASIVE, INC.,

Defendant/Counterclaimant-Cross-Appellant.

______________________ 

2013-1576, -1577

______________________ 

Appeals from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of California in No. 08-CV-1512, Judge 

Cathy Ann Bencivengo.

______________________ 

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2 WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 

REYNA, Circuit Judge, concurring. 

While I concur in the result reached by this court, I 

write to express several concerns regarding how the result 

was reached and its future implications. First, I am 

concerned about Section III of the opinion, which addresses the reasonableness of MSD’s infringement position. 

This section concludes that “there is no support in the 

language of claim 1 of the ’236 patent or its prosecution 

history to support” MSD’s reading of the claims. Op. at 

10. MSD’s petition for certiorari argued that, because this 

court’s prior opinion did not discuss whether MSD’s

reading of the claims was reasonable, the Supreme Court 

should grant, vacate, and remand in light of Commil 

USA, LLC v. Cisco Sys., Inc., 135 S. Ct. 1920 (2015). 

Petition for Writ of Certiorari, Medtronic Sofamor Danek 

USA, Inc. v. NuVasive, Inc., 2015 WL 4397393, at *i.1

While the Supreme Court in Commil stated that a defendant lacks the intent for induced infringement where 

his reading of the claims is both different from the plaintiff’s and reasonable, I do not believe Commil opens the 

door for this court to assess the reasonableness of a defendant’s non-infringement position that is based on a 

claim construction that a defendant failed to raise, or that 

was not before the jury.2 In this case, MSD proposed no 

construction for the “stopping” limitation, arguing that 

the limitation has a plain meaning to one of ordinary skill 

in the art. I would resolve this case on this basis. Where 

 

1 In Warsaw Orthopedic, Inc. v. NuVasive, Inc., 778 

F.3d 1365, 1373 (Fed. Cir. 2015), this court found that 

MSD was precluded from raising on appeal its construction of the “stopping limitation,” because it was raised too 

late in the proceeding and was therefore waived.

2

 See supra note 1.

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WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 3

a defendant proposes no construction of a claim term, this 

court is speculating to determine what the defendant’s 

reading of the claims is. We should not be in the business 

of creating claim constructions for defendants in induced 

infringement actions so that we may then assess whether

the claim constructions are reasonable.

Second, if the question before us is whether the jury 

had sufficient evidence to find that MSD induced infringement, such as circumstantial evidence showing that 

MSD was willfully blind, our analysis should discuss that 

evidence. But, the only evidence the opinion cites as 

showing MSD’s intent to induce infringement is evidence 

that MSD’s device itself directly infringed. Op. at 11. 

Thus, the opinion’s analysis is suspect. Commil indicated 

that a defendant’s reliance on a claim construction under 

which it did not infringe, while incorrect or wrong, could 

still suffice to show that the defendant lacked the intent 

to induce infringement as long as the construction was 

reasonable. 135 S. Ct. at 1928. Because the jury was not 

instructed on this, I find it difficult at best to say that the 

jury necessarily decided that MSD’s “claim construction” 

was unreasonable, as the opinion seems to do. Of note, 

the jury was not presented with the claim construction 

briefing that the court here relies on in its analysis criticizing MSD’s “claim construction.” 

Third, the opinion concludes by stating that “[g]iven 

the strength of the evidence NuVasive presented, a reasonable jury could have concluded that MSD must have 

known” its device infringed under the claim constructions 

adopted by the district court and now affirmed by this 

court. Op. at 12. It is not clear what evidence leads to 

this conclusion, let alone that the evidence is so strong 

that it shows MSD “must have known” it was infringing. 

In Global-Tech, the Supreme Court cited evidence that 

the accused infringer had intentionally withheld key 

information from its patent attorney when seeking a 

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4 WARSAW ORTHOPEDIC, INC. v. NUVASIVE, INC. 

right-to-use opinion. Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB 

S.A., 563 U.S. 754, 131 S. Ct. 2060, 2071 (2011). In 

Global-Tech, the evidence demonstrated the defendant’s 

willful blindness. The opinion here cites no similar evidence. The opinion’s analysis suggests that any time a 

defendant’s products are found to directly infringe, the 

plaintiff has sufficiently established the defendant’s

intent to induce infringement. This proposition conflicts 

with Global-Tech, Commil, and our caselaw.

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