Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01133/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01133-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Alps South, LLC
Cross-Appellant
Ohio Willow Wood Company
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

 

THE OHIO WILLOW WOOD COMPANY,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

ALPS SOUTH, LLC,

Defendant-Cross-Appellant

______________________ 

2015-1132, 2015-1133

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Ohio in No. 2:04-cv-01223-GLF-MRA, 

Judge Gregory L. Frost.

______________________ 

Decided: February 19, 2016

______________________ 

JOHN DAVID LUKEN, Dinsmore & Shohl LLP, Cincinnati, OH, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented 

by JOSHUA A. LORENTZ, BRIAN S. SULLIVAN. 

RONALD A. CHRISTALDI, Shumaker, Loop & Kendrick 

LLP, Tampa, FL, argued for defendant-cross-appellant. 

Also represented by MINDI M. RICHTER, DAVID WAYNE

WICKLUND, Toledo, OH.

______________________ 

Before DYK, BRYSON, and WALLACH, Circuit Judges.

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2 OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC

BRYSON, Circuit Judge.

This case marks the latest chapter in a long-running 

dispute between two manufacturers of prosthetic limb

accessories. The appellant, The Ohio Willow Wood Company (“OWW”), owns a group of patents directed to cushioning devices that fit over the residual stumps of 

amputated limbs to make the use of prosthetics more 

comfortable. OWW has asserted its patents against 

defendant Alps South, LLC (“Alps”) in several actions.

The cushioning devices at issue in this case consist of 

stretchable pieces of synthetic fabric that are coated with 

a gel on only the side touching the body. That design 

creates a gel side that reduces irritation to the skin and a 

dry side that allows free interaction with the prosthesis. 

I 

This case is back before us following an earlier decision remanding a portion of the case for trial. See Ohio 

Willow Wood Co. v. Alps S., LLC, 735 F.3d 1333 (Fed. 

Cir. 2013). The facts and legal issues that we addressed 

then are similar to those presented in this appeal, so we 

offer an abbreviated version of the background facts, 

focusing mainly on the analysis of the district court’s 

findings of fact and conclusions of law in the remand 

proceedings. 

A 

OWW filed the present action in 2004, charging Alps 

with infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,830,237 (“the ’237 

patent”). After the district court issued a claim construction order, Alps challenged the validity of the ’237 patent 

in two successive ex parte reexamination proceedings 

before the Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO”). The 

district court stayed the litigation pending the resolution 

of the reexamination proceedings.

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OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC 3

The first reexamination, initiated in 2006, focused on 

advertisements for a prior art cushioning device called the 

Silosheath, which was made by Silipos, Inc., one of 

OWW’s competitors. The Silosheath consisted of a sheath 

made of nylon fabric with gel material on the inner side. 

The examiner initially rejected all the challenged claims 

of the ’237 patent based on the Silosheath prior art. 

OWW overcame the rejection by showing the examiner a 

Silosheath product in which the gel on the inner or skin 

side of the liner had bled through to the outer or prosthetic side. The examiner then allowed OWW to amend its 

claims to clarify that the gel coating was found only on 

the inner side of its claimed device and issued a reexamination certificate. 

In 2008, shortly after the completion of the first reexamination, Alps initiated a second reexamination. The 

new request for reexamination was based on an advertisement in a trade magazine published on January 1, 

1995, which depicted a gel liner identified as the Single 

Socket Gel Liner (“SSGL”), from Silipos’s “Silosheath

product line.” Alps argued that the SSGL was invalidating prior art because it had gel on its inner surface, but 

not on its outer surface. The central issue in the second 

reexamination was whether the synthetic fabric used in 

the SSGL prevented the gel on the skin side of the liner 

from bleeding through to the prosthetic side.

In addition to the advertisement, Alps presented a 

declaration and deposition testimony from Jean-Paul

Comtesse, who worked at Silipos when the Silosheath and 

the SSGL were developed. Mr. Comtesse stated that the 

SSGL did not have the same gel bleed-through problem as 

the Silosheath because it was manufactured from a fabric 

called “Coolmax” that was thicker and denser than the 

fabric used in the Silosheath. Alps argued that, in light of 

the prior art evidence and Mr. Comtesse’s testimony, it 

was clear that the amended claims were invalid. 

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4 OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC

The examiner agreed with Alps and rejected the 

claims of the ’237 patent for obviousness in light of the 

SSGL and other prior art. OWW appealed the rejection to 

the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (“the 

Board”). In its brief to the Board, OWW argued that Mr. 

Comtesse’s testimony was unreliable because it was 

uncorroborated and because Mr. Comtesse was a highly 

interested witness. As to Mr. Comtesse’s interest in the 

case, OWW argued that he was the inventor of the SSGL 

and that he continued to receive royalties on that product. 

As to the absence of corroboration, OWW argued that

aside from Mr. Comtesse’s testimony the only evidence 

relating to the SSGL was the 1995 advertisement, which 

contained no reference to Coolmax. According to OWW, 

there was “no other evidence of any sort in this regard,” 

and because “the Comtesse testimony is not corroborated 

as required it cannot be properly used to cure the very 

deficiencies in the [1995 advertisement] for which corroboration is lacking.”

In oral argument before the Board, OWW pressed its

contention that there was no evidence corroborating Mr. 

Comtesse’s testimony about the SSGL. OWW also continued to argue that Mr. Comtesse was an interested 

witness, asserting that he was an inventor of the SSGL 

and was still receiving royalties from Silipos’s sales of 

that product.

The Board reversed the examiner’s rejection. The 

Board agreed with OWW that Mr. Comtesse’s testimony 

was uncorroborated and that he was an interested third 

party. Based on those conclusions, the Board held that 

the examiner had erred in crediting Mr. Comtesse’s 

testimony that the SSGL was made of Coolmax and had 

gel on only its inner side.

B 

Following the second reexamination, the district court 

lifted the stay of the litigation. The court then granted 

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OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC 5

Alps’s motion for summary judgment of invalidity as to all 

the asserted claims of the ’237 patent. The court invalidated some of the claims based on the collateral estoppel 

effect of a decision against OWW in a case from a different 

district court. It invalidated the remaining claims for 

obviousness based on the Silosheath, the SSGL, and other 

prior art references. The court also addressed Alps’s 

inequitable conduct claim, which was predicated on 

OWW’s conduct before the PTO during the two reexamination proceedings. As to that claim, the court granted 

summary judgment to OWW, holding that there was no 

triable issue of inequitable conduct on OWW’s part.

C 

Both sides appealed. This court affirmed the summary judgment of invalidity. With respect to inequitable 

conduct, however, we concluded that the case presented 

genuine issues of material fact. Accordingly, we reversed 

the summary judgment of no inequitable conduct and 

remanded the case to the district court for trial. Ohio 

Willow Wood Co., 735 F.3d 1333. 

We noted that “OWW was only able to obtain issuance 

of the ’237 patent in the reexamination proceedings by 

arguing that the prior art lacked gel liners with no observable gel material on their exterior surfaces.” Id. at 

1345. In the second reexamination, we added, “OWW was 

only able to overcome the examiner’s final rejection in 

view of the SSGL by convincing the [Board] that Mr. 

Comtesse was a highly interested witness and there was 

no evidence, as required by law, to corroborate his testimony that the SSGL was constructed using a Coolmax 

fabric.” Id. at 1346.

As to corroboration, we stated that the evidence as a

whole provided “consistent and convincing evidence that 

corroborates Mr. Comtesse’s testimony regarding the 

structure of the SSGL prior to [the ’237 patent’s critical 

date of] March 5, 1995.” Id. at 1349. 

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6 OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC

As to whether Mr. Comtesse was an interested witness, we agreed with the district court that OWW had 

misrepresented Mr. Comtesse’s testimony to the Board. 

We stated that Mr. Comtesse “never admitted that he was 

interested in the outcome of the present dispute nor did 

he ever admit that he was receiving royalty payments at 

the time of his deposition in 2006.”1 Id. at 1349.

Finally, with respect to the issue of intent, we stated 

that “OWW withheld various pieces of material information and had no reasonable explanation for the several 

misrepresentations it made to the PTO.” Id. at 1351. The 

collective weight of the evidence, we concluded, “would 

support a finding of intent that is the single most reasonable inference to be drawn from the evidence at this stage 

of the proceedings.” Id.

D 

On remand, the district court held a three-day bench 

trial on the inequitable conduct issue. Following the trial, 

the court issued a lengthy opinion finding inequitable 

conduct in the second reexamination, but not in the first. 

The inequitable conduct in the second reexamination, the 

court found, arose from the conduct of James Colvin,

OWW’s Director of Research and Development, who was 

responsible for overseeing the Alps litigation for the 

company.

OWW used the same law firm for both the litigation 

and reexamination proceedings in this case. The firm 

established an ethical screen to separate the attorney 

handling OWW’s reexamination proceedings from the 

attorneys handling OWW’s litigation matters. With the 

creation of the screen, Mr. Colvin became the connection 

 

1 OWW’s reexamination counsel has since admitted 

that his statement regarding the payment of royalties to 

Mr. Comtesse was incorrect. 

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OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC 7

between OWW’s litigation and reexamination counsel. 

The district court found that, with occasional exceptions, 

Mr. Colvin was the ultimate decision maker with respect 

to some of OWW’s patent litigation matters, including this 

case. The court also found that Mr. Colvin had reviewed 

filings and attended hearings in both the litigation and 

the reexamination proceedings, and that Mr. Colvin was 

sophisticated with respect to patents and patent prosecution, as he had overseen the prosecution of about 30 

patents and was an inventor on about 20 patents. Mr. 

Colvin testified that, although he understood that he was 

the person “in the middle,” he did not send OWW’s reexamination counsel “all information . . . regardless of how 

important it might have been.” Instead, Mr. Colvin 

explained that he sent OWW’s reexamination counsel only 

“whatever he requested or I thought was appropriate.”

The district court ruled that Mr. Colvin engaged in

inequitable conduct during the second reexamination of 

the ’237 patent based on a series of factual findings regarding whether Mr. Comtesse’s testimony was uncorroborated. The court found (1) that Mr. Colvin was aware 

that OWW’s reexamination counsel had represented to 

the Board that Mr. Comtesse’s testimony was entirely 

uncorroborated; (2) that Mr. Colvin was aware of materials that corroborated Mr. Comtesse’s testimony; and (3) 

that Mr. Colvin failed to correct his counsel’s misrepresentations.

The items the court identified as corroborative of Mr. 

Comtesse’s testimony included a pair of letters sent to 

OWW in April and October of 1999 by Michael Scalise, an 

attorney for Silipos (“the Scalise letters”). The first of the 

Scalise letters stated that Silipos had sold the “SiloSheath 

product line” since “at least as early as 1992” and that one 

of the products in that line “contained the polymeric gel 

on only the inside of the sock.” That letter concluded that 

Silipos’s “original sales of their SiloSheath tube-shaped 

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8 OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC

sock product line having the gelatinous materials on only 

the inside of the sock pre-date the filing date” of the ’237 

patent. The letter also enclosed a 1994 patent application 

amendment for the Silosheath product line that disclosed 

a protective garment having “an inner layer comprising a 

gel.” 

The second Scalise letter claimed that Silipos’s sale of 

liners “having the gelatinous material on only the inside 

of the sock pre-date the filing date of [the application that 

became the ’237 patent] by more than one year.” Attached to the letter was a November 1, 1993, shipping 

invoice that the letter claimed was for one of the Silipos 

products with gel on only one side.

OWW did not disclose the Scalise letters to its reexamination counsel, and the letters were not disclosed to 

the PTO in the course of either reexamination. The 

district court found that Mr. Colvin was aware of the 

Scalise letters and that the letters were corroborative of 

Mr. Comtesse’s testimony. For that reason, the court 

ruled, the letters became material when OWW contended 

that Mr. Comtesse’s testimony was uncorroborated.

The district court also found that Mr. Colvin had 

knowledge of three declarations that were attached to 

Alps’s 2006 summary judgment motion in the district 

court litigation. The declarants stated that Silipos had 

offered the SSGL product prior to January 1, 1995, and 

that the SSGL had no gel on the exterior of the liner and 

no bleed-through, as was the case with some of the Silosheath products. One of the three declarants stated that 

he had fitted a patient with the SSGL, which used a

substantially thicker fabric than the Silosheath, and as a 

result did not allow the gel to pass through to the exterior 

of the liner.

The court found that the Board accepted as true 

OWW’s representation that Mr. Comtesse’s testimony was 

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OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC 9

uncorroborated. The court further concluded that “absent 

OWW’s misrepresentations that no corroborating evidence 

existed, the [Board] would not have reversed the Examiner and reinstated the ’237 patent.” The court’s finding

mirrored the Board’s opinion that “the dispositive issue in 

this appeal is . . . [the] testimony of [Mr. Comtesse] in 

support of the rejections.” 

Moving to the issue of intent, the district court found 

that the evidence was sufficient to infer deceptive intent

on the part of Mr. Colvin and OWW’s reexamination 

counsel. While the court was not persuaded that deceptive intent was the single most reasonable inference to 

draw from the evidence with respect to reexamination 

counsel, it reached the opposite conclusion with respect to 

Mr. Colvin.

The court found that Mr. Colvin was deeply involved 

in both the reexamination proceedings and the infringement litigation, and that he knew about various items 

bearing on the inequitable conduct allegations. The court 

therefore found that Mr. Colvin was in a position to 

correct the misrepresentations regarding the evidence 

corroborating Mr. Comtesse’s testimony, but did not do so. 

In particular, the court found that Mr. Colvin was aware 

of the Scalise letters and the 2006 declarations. The court 

rejected as not credible Mr. Colvin’s testimony that he 

had never seen the 2006 declarations because he was 

barred from seeing them by the protective order entered 

in the district court case.

As to the Scalise letters and the Silipos patent application referred to and attached to one of the letters, the 

district court noted that Mr. Colvin “had no explanation 

for his failure to present those documents to either 

[OWW’s prosecution counsel] or the PTO.” The court 

therefore held that “the most reasonable inference to be 

drawn from the evidence is that OWW acted with decepCase: 15-1133 Document: 3-2 Page: 9 Filed: 02/19/2016
10 OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC

tive intent in misrepresenting the existence of evidence 

corroborating the Comtesse testimony.”2

Based on its inequitable conduct finding, the district 

court held the ’237 patent unenforceable, found the case 

to be exceptional, and imposed a fee award against OWW. 

The fee award required OWW to pay Alps’s attorneys’ fees 

incurred in litigating this case after September 30, 2011, 

the date of the Board’s decision on the second reexamination.

Alps also requested that the district court extend its 

holding that the ’237 patent was unenforceable to three 

other related patents owned by OWW, U.S. Patent Nos. 

6,964,688, 7,291,182, and 8,523,951. The court denied 

that request. It noted that Alps had not requested that 

relief in its counterclaim and that “Alps’ arguments 

regarding the similarity of the [three related OWW patents] go beyond the scope of evidence presented in this 

case.”

II

OWW argues that the district court erred in finding 

that OWW, through Mr. Colvin, was guilty of inequitable 

conduct during the second reexamination. 

A party seeking to prove inequitable conduct must 

show by clear and convincing evidence that the patent 

 

2 The court credited Mr. Colvin’s statement that he 

was unaware that Mr. Comtesse had testified that he was 

not currently receiving royalties for the SSGL. Accordingly, the court found that the evidence did not show that 

Mr. Colvin knew that his reexamination counsel’s statements to the Board about Mr. Comtesse’s royalties were 

false. For that reason, the court held that Mr. Colvin did 

not commit inequitable conduct in misrepresenting the 

issue of royalties to the PTO.

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OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC 11

applicant made misrepresentations or omissions material 

to patentability, that he did so with the specific intent to 

mislead or deceive the PTO, and that deceptive intent was 

the single most reasonable inference to be drawn from the 

evidence. Ohio Willow Wood, 735 F.3d at 1344; Therasense, Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., 649 F.3d 1276, 

1291 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (en banc). On appeal, we review the 

district court’s findings of fact on the issues of materiality 

and intent for clear error. Am. Calcar, Inc. v. Am. Honda 

Motor Co., 768 F.3d 1185, 1189 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (citing 

Intellect Wireless, Inc. v. HTC Corp., 732 F.3d 1339, 1342

(Fed. Cir. 2013)). We review the district court’s ultimate 

finding of inequitable conduct based on those underlying 

facts for an abuse of discretion. Id.

A 

To prove the element of materiality, a party claiming 

inequitable conduct ordinarily must show that the patentee “withheld or misrepresented information that, in 

the absence of the withholding or misrepresentation, 

would have prevented a patent claim from issuing.” Ohio 

Willow Wood, 735 F.3d at 1345; Therasense, 649 F.3d at

1291.

The district court acknowledged that the Scalise letters did not “conclusively answer” the questions whether 

the SSGL was on sale before the critical date of the ’237 

patent and whether the SSGL had gel only on the inside 

of the liner. However, the court explained that the significance of that evidence was not that it conclusively proved 

that an anticipating device was on sale before that date, 

but that it corroborated Mr. Comtesse’s testimony to that 

effect. 

Mr. Comtesse testified that the SSGL depicted in the 

January 1, 1995 advertisement represented invalidating 

prior art having gel only on the inner side. The assertion 

in the Scalise letters that Silipos sold a product “with 

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12 OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC

gelatinous material on only one side” prior to March 5, 

1995, corroborates Mr. Comtesse’s testimony.3

The district court found that the withheld evidence 

became “but-for” material to patentability in the second 

reexamination once OWW argued to the Board that Mr. 

Comtesse’s testimony was uncorroborated. That finding 

is well supported in light of the Board’s focus on the 

existence of corroborating evidence as the dispositive 

issue in the case and its acceptance of OWW’s representations that no corroborating evidence existed.

OWW argues that the Scalise letters were not material because they referred to the Silosheath, not the SSGL. 

In fact, however, the letters used the term “Silosheath” 

not to refer to a single product, but to refer to a line of 

products (“the Silosheath product line”), which included 

one product containing gel on only one side. The use of 

the term “Silosheath product line” to include the SSGL is 

reflected in January 1, 1995, advertisement, which refers 

to the SSGL in connection with the “Silosheath product 

line.”

OWW also argues that Silipos used the term Silosheath to refer to products with a thin nylon sheath, not 

the thicker fabric found in the SSGL, which was referred 

to as a “liner.” Again, the Scalise letters undermine that 

 

3 In addition to the substance of the assertions contained in the Scalise letters, the fact that they were sent 

approximately five years before the litigation commenced 

and more than seven years before Mr. Comtesse was 

deposed is significant, as the letters would have undercut 

OWW’s contention that Mr. Comtesse’s testimony about 

the SSGL was influenced by the litigation and was unreliable because of the years that had passed since the 

events in question. 

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OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC 13

argument; the second Scalise letter refers to “various 

Silosheath tube-shaped sock products,” including the 

“Silosheath Prosthetic Liner,” sold before the critical date 

of the ’237 patent, which had “gelatinous material on only 

the inside of the sock.”

The district court’s finding on the issue of materiality 

is supported by the evidence at the trial on remand. 

Given the Board’s determination that corroboration was 

the dispositive issue, and in light of OWW’s assertions 

before the PTO that there was no corroborating evidence

for Mr. Comtesse’s testimony, the district court’s determination that the corroborating evidence was material to 

patentability is not clearly erroneous.

B 

Specific intent to commit acts constituting inequitable 

conduct may be inferred from indirect and circumstantial 

evidence. Therasense, 649 F.3d at 1290. But deceptive 

intent must be “the single most reasonable inference 

drawn from the evidence.” Id.

As to the evidence corroborating Mr. Comtesse’s testimony, the court found that Mr. Colvin was aware of the 

1999 Scalise letters and knew that their contents were

consistent with Mr. Comtesse’s testimony. For that 

reason, the court found that Mr. Colvin knew that evidence corroborating Mr. Comtesse was in OWW’s possession. The court further found that Mr. Colvin understood 

from his counsel and from his experience before the PTO 

that he had a duty of candor separate and apart from his 

attorney’s duty;4 that he had the opportunity to correct 

 

4 The PTO imposes a duty of candor on “the patent 

owner, each attorney or agent who represents the patent 

owner, and every other individual who is substantively 

involved on behalf of the patent owner in a reexamination 

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14 OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC

the representations that OWW made to the Board regarding Mr. Comtesse’s testimony; and that he took no action 

to correct those misrepresentations. Based on those 

subsidiary findings, the district court found that deceptive 

intent was demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence.

The evidence supports the district court’s finding that 

Mr. Colvin’s act of withholding the letters was the product 

of deceptive intent. It is clear from Mr. Colvin’s testimony 

that he understood that the appeal to the Board in the 

second reexamination turned in substantial part on the 

question of corroboration. Mr. Colvin’s testimony also 

reflects that he understood that he could have given his 

reexamination counsel the Scalise letters at any point but 

that he chose not to do so. 

The court found that OWW offered no reasonable explanation for Mr. Colvin’s conduct. Although Mr. Colvin 

knew that he was responsible for providing information in 

OWW’s possession to his reexamination counsel, the court 

noted that Mr. Colvin had “no explanation for his failure 

to present [the letters]” to his reexamination counsel or 

the PTO. The court concluded that the most reasonable 

inference to be drawn from the evidence was that Mr. 

Colvin had acted with deceptive intent.

OWW suggests that Mr. Colvin did not correct the 

misrepresentation because he believed the Scalise letters 

were not prior art. The district court, however, reasonably found that OWW’s explanation was not a valid excuse 

for his conduct. The record reflects that Mr. Colvin understood that corroboration and prior art were separate

questions in the appeal. If Mr. Colvin had understood 

those questions to be the same, his belief as to what 

 

proceeding.” 37 C.F.R. § 1.555(a); see also 37 C.F.R. § 1.56 

(imposing a duty of candor in dealings with the PTO).

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OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC 15

constituted prior art might be relevant. However, given 

his understanding that the issues were distinct, his 

opinion regarding whether the letters constituted prior 

art does not provide an explanation for his failure to 

disclose the letters as corroborative evidence. The district 

court’s determination that deceptive intent was the most 

reasonable inference for Colvin’s conduct is not clearly 

erroneous. 

C 

In addition to the Scalise letters, the district court 

held that Mr. Colvin was guilty of inequitable conduct in 

the second reexamination by withholding the 2006 declarations from the PTO. OWW argues that Mr. Colvin was 

unaware of those declarations because they were contained in a summary judgment motion in the district 

court litigation that was filed under seal and was subject 

to a protective order. Mr. Colvin testified that he believed 

he was not entitled to read the sealed materials and 

therefore did not read the summary judgment motion or 

the attached declarations.

The district court found Mr. Colvin’s testimony on 

that point not to be credible, as the protective order did 

not bar OWW employees such as Mr. Colvin from viewing 

sealed materials (other than those denominated for attorneys’ eyes only). The court found that it was “inconceivable that the OWW representative responsible for litigation 

involving the ’237 patent—the commercial embodiment of 

which . . . was OWW’s best-selling product—would not 

review the portions of Alps’s summary judgment motion 

and exhibits not designated as ‘attorney’s eyes only,’” or 

otherwise designated as confidential. The court therefore 

found that as of 2006 Mr. Colvin knew that the three 

prosthetists, who had no apparent connection to Mr. 

Comtesse, “had corroborated his testimony that Silipos 

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16 OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC

manufactured and sold a version of the SSGL that did not 

allow gel bleed-through prior to March 5, 1995.”

Viewing the record as a whole, we disagree with the 

district court that there was clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Colvin was aware of the 2006 declarations. 

No witness testified that Mr. Colvin saw the 2006 declarations or learned of their contents. Mr. Colvin testified 

that he believed he had never seen the declarations and 

was only told about the basis for the summary judgment 

motion “in general terms.” He testified that he was told 

only that “there were some declarations that supported 

the [summary judgment] motion and that it was filed 

under seal.”

Both of the litigation attorneys for OWW testified that 

they understood that the entire appendix of the summary 

judgment motion, which included the declarations, was 

confidential and could not be shared with Mr. Colvin. 

Moreover, one of the litigation attorneys testified that the 

appendix to the summary judgment motion consisted of a 

single bound volume, and that he had never separated the 

materials specifically marked as confidential from other

materials in that volume.

In light of the high standard of proof required to establish the intent prong of inequitable conduct, we conclude that the evidence of Mr. Colvin’s role in supervising 

the litigation was not sufficient under the circumstances 

to establish that he was familiar with the 2006 declarations, even in light of the district court’s credibility judgment regarding Mr. Colvin. In analogous situations, this 

court has held circumstantial evidence of the sort at issue 

in this case to be insufficient to meet the “clear and convincing evidence” standard for inequitable conduct, even 

when the district court has made credibility findings 

against the party charged with inequitable conduct. See

1st Media, LLC v. Elec. Arts, Inc., 694 F.3d 1367 (Fed. Cir. 

2012); Star Sci., Inc. v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co., 537 

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OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC 17

F.3d 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2008). Based on the failure of proof, 

we hold that Alps failed to show that Mr. Colvin acted 

with deceptive intent in concealing those declarations 

from the PTO or that deceptive intent was the single most 

reasonable inference to draw from his conduct.

In sum, we uphold the district court’s findings regarding Mr. Colvin’s failure to call the Scalise letters to the 

PTO’s attention in the second reexamination. Based on 

those findings, we hold that the district court did not 

abuse its discretion in determining that Mr. Colvin was 

guilty of inequitable conduct in the second reexamination.

III

A 

In its cross-appeal, Alps argues that the district court 

erred by finding no inequitable conduct during the first 

reexamination.5 Alps contends that the district court’s 

conclusion with respect to the first reexamination conflicts with its conclusion regarding the second reexamina-

 

5 OWW argues that Alps’s challenge to the district 

court’s ruling on the first reexamination is not a proper 

subject for a cross-appeal because its argument, if successful, would merely provide an alternative ground for 

affirmance of the judgment of unenforceability. We 

disagree. A cross-appeal is the proper way to proceed if 

the cross-appellant is seeking to lessen the rights of its 

adversary or enlarge its own rights. See El Paso Nat. Gas 

Co. v. Neztsosie, 526 U.S. 473, 479 (1999); Bailey v. Dart 

Container Corp., 292 F.3d 1360, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2002). A 

judgment of unenforceability based on both the first and 

second reexaminations would expose OWW to a larger 

attorney fee award than a judgment based on the second 

reexamination alone. It was therefore proper for Alps to 

press its argument as to the first reexamination by way of 

a cross-appeal. 

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18 OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC

tion. We disagree. The court’s ruling regarding the 

second reexamination centered on Mr. Colvin’s failure to 

correct OWW’s misrepresentations to the Board concerning the purported absence of corroborating evidence for 

Mr. Comtesse’s testimony. No such misrepresentations 

were made during the first reexamination.

The district court concluded that Alps failed to show 

that any of the items that it complained were not provided 

to the PTO in the course of the first reexamination were 

“but-for” material to that reexamination. The court found 

that the Comtesse testimony was before the examiner in 

the first reexamination and that items that corroborated 

Mr. Comtesse’s testimony were not material to the first 

reexamination. After analyzing Alps’s claims as to each 

item that it contends should have been disclosed to the 

examiner, the court concluded that “OWW did not withhold or misrepresent ‘but-for’ material information during 

the first reexamination proceedings.” We hold that those 

findings are not clearly erroneous, and we therefore reject 

Alps’s contention that the court’s differing conclusions 

with respect to the two reexaminations cannot stand.

B 

Alps also appeals from the district court’s decision not 

to extend the determination of unenforceability beyond 

the ’237 patent to at least two of the related OWW patents, U.S. Patent Nos. 6,964,688 and 7,291,182. The 

district court did not err in that regard. As the district 

court noted, those patents have never been at issue in this 

litigation, and Alps did not request in its counterclaim the 

sweeping relief that it now asks us to direct the district 

court to grant. Moreover, because different evidence may 

be pertinent to a claim of inequitable conduct directed to 

those other patents, the district court properly ruled that 

the findings that would be necessary to hold those patents 

unenforceable would go “beyond the scope of evidence 

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OHIO WILLOW WOOD CO. v. ALPS SOUTH, LLC 19

presented in this case.” The district court’s refusal to 

extend the unenforceability holding in these circumstances is appropriately within its discretion and is not in 

error. 

We therefore affirm the district court’s decision that 

the ’237 patent is unenforceable for inequitable conduct in 

connection with the second reexamination, but not in 

connection with the first. We also affirm the district 

court’s decisions with respect to the appropriate remedy.

Each party shall bear its own costs for these appeals.

AFFIRMED

Case: 15-1133 Document: 3-2 Page: 19 Filed: 02/19/2016