Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01124/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01124-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Airsec S.A.S.
Appellee
CSP Technologies, Inc.
Appellant
Clariant Corporation
Appellee
Clariant Production (France) S.A.S.
Appellee
Clariant Produkte Deutschland Gmbh
Appellee
Sud-Chemie AG
Appellee
Sud-Chemie, Inc.
Appellee

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC.,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

SUD-CHEMIE AG, SUD-CHEMIE, INC., AIRSEC

S.A.S., CLARIANT PRODUKTE DEUTSCHLAND 

GMBH, CLARIANT CORPORATION, CLARIANT 

PRODUCTION (FRANCE) S.A.S.,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________ 

2015-1124

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Southern District of Indiana in No. 4:11-cv-00029-RLYWGH, Judge Richard L. Young.

______________________ 

Decided: March 22, 2016

______________________ 

JAMES RICHARD NUTTAL, Steptoe & Johnson, LLP, 

Chicago, IL, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by JOHN LLOYD ABRAMIC, THOMAS ARTHUR 

RAMMER, II. 

SEAN MICHAEL SULLIVAN, Lee Sullivan Shea & Smith 

LLP, Chicago, IL, argued for defendants-appellees. Also 

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2 CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG

represented by JOHN DAN SMITH, III; PAUL H. BERGHOFF,

PAULA FRITSCH, McDonnell, Boehnen, Hulbert & 

Berghoff, LLP, Chicago, IL. 

______________________ 

Before REYNA, MAYER, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.

CHEN, Circuit Judge. 

This appeal arises from a patent-infringement action 

CSP Technologies, Inc. (CSP) filed against Süd-Chemie 

AG, Süd-Chemie, Inc., Airsec S.A.S., Clariant Produkte 

Deutschland GMBH, Clariant Corporation, and Clariant 

Production (France) S.A.S. (Süd Chemie). The district 

court construed the claim term “an upper housing portion 

of the container” in Süd Chemie’s favor, and Süd Chemie

sought summary judgment of non-infringement both 

literally and by equivalents based on this construction. 

The district court granted summary judgment. CSP 

appeals the district court’s claim construction (and consequently its summary judgment of non-infringement). 

Additionally, even if we affirm the district court’s claim 

construction, CSP appeals the grant of summary judgment of non-infringement by equivalents. We affirm the 

district court on both grounds.

BACKGROUND

CSP and Süd Chemie are competitors in the business 

of watertight containers for packaging consumer goods. 

CSP sued Süd Chemie for infringement of its U.S. Patent 

No. 7,537,137 (the ’137 patent), which claims a particular 

watertight container with an attached lid. Claim 1, 

representative for our purposes, reads in relevant part:

A substantially moisture tight container and lid 

assembly for storing and packaging moisturesensitive items comprising:

an assembly with a container and a lid,

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CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG 3

a) the lid is attached by a hinge to 

an upper housing portion of the 

container, the lid has an outer periphery that extends over at least 

a portion of the container, the lid 

is provided with a skirt that extends downwardly therefrom,

b) the container has a container 

base, and a sidewall extending 

upwardly from the container base,

. . . 

The ’137 patent’s specification describes two different 

types of containers. First, it describes a one-piece container. This container is formed as a single piece, with a lid 

attached by a hinge. It depicts this type of container in 

Figure 10: 

Second, the patent describes a two-piece container. 

This container similarly has a lid attached by a hinge, but 

the top portion of the container to which the lid attaches 

is separable from the bottom portion of the container. 

The specification explains that this two-piece container 

design facilitates pre-loading the container’s contents: the 

contents are first loaded into the container’s bottom piece, 

and then the top piece is snap-fit onto the bottom piece 

with the contents already inside. The patent’s Figure 6 

shows this two-piece type of container:

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4 CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG

The parties agree that Süd Chemie’s accused product 

is a one-piece container, not a two-piece one. The only 

question before us in this appeal is therefore whether a 

one-piece container infringes the asserted claims, either 

literally or under the doctrine of equivalents.

The only claim term relevant to the parties’ arguments on appeal is the container’s “upper housing portion.” Below, CSP proposed an ordinary-meaning 

construction and Süd Chemie proposed the construction: 

“an upper housing portion of the container that is separate and distinct from the container base.” 

CSP Techs., Inc. v. Süd-Chemie AG, 2013 U.S. Dist. 

LEXIS 77441, *17 (S.D. Ind. June 3, 2013) (ClaimConstruction Order). The parties agree that their claimconstruction dispute on this term boils down to a single 

issue: whether the term excludes one-piece containers 

from the asserted claims’ scope. Under CSP’s ordinarymeaning construction, the term refers generically to the 

top portion of the container, whether or not it is separable, and the claims would literally encompass both onepiece and two-piece containers. Under Süd Chemie’s

construction the term refers to a separable top piece of the 

container, excluding one-piece containers from the claims’ 

literal reach. 

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CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG 5

The district court began its analysis of this term by 

determining that the specification did not explicitly define 

it. The court then turned to an extrinsic dictionary definition of the word “housing,” which defined it as “something 

that covers or protects” something else. ClaimConstruction Order at *19 (quoting Merriam-Webster’s 

Collegiate Dictionary, 603 (11th ed. 2006)). It found this 

definition to support a construction where the “upper 

housing portion” is a separate piece that “covers or protects” the container’s bottom piece. It then turned to the 

claims themselves, noting that the relevant claim language is divided into two subparts, labeled “a)” and “b).” 

It found subpart a) to refer to the upper housing portion 

and subpart b) to refer to the remainder of the container. 

It therefore found this separation into subparts to imply a 

physical separation between the upper housing portion 

and the remainder of the container. Finally, it considered 

the specification, which uses the term “upper housing 

portion” consistently and exclusively in the context of the 

disclosed two-piece embodiment. It inferred from this 

consistent usage that the patentee intended the term to 

reference the two-piece embodiment. The district court 

therefore adopted Süd Chemie’s construction limiting the 

term to a detachable part found only in the two-piece 

embodiment. Id. at *20.

Concurrent with its claim-construction briefing Süd 

Chemie had filed briefing requesting summary judgment 

of non-infringement should the district court grant any of 

its proposed constructions. The parties fully briefed this 

summary-judgment motion before the claim-construction 

order issued, and each party submitted a supplemental 

brief after the order. CSP Techs., Inc. v. Süd-Chemie AG, 

2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 14687, *8–*9 (S.D. Ind. Feb. 6, 

2014). The district court considered this briefing and 

granted Süd Chemie summary judgment of noninfringement both literally and by equivalents. Id. at *18. 

CSP appeals on two grounds. First, it takes issue with 

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6 CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG

the district court’s construction of “upper housing portion,” maintaining that the term’s ordinary meaning

encompasses one-piece and two-piece containers. If we 

agree with CSP on this first issue, we must also reverse 

the district court’s summary-judgment order predicated 

on this construction. Second, even if we affirm the district 

court’s construction, CSP challenges its grant of summary 

judgment of no infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, arguing that the court improperly found its equivalents arguments barred by the disclosure-dedication and 

claim-vitiation doctrines.

DISCUSSION

We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

We affirm the district court’s claim construction. We 

also find that the district court appropriately applied the 

disclosure-dedication doctrine to conclude that a two-piece 

container cannot infringe under the doctrine of equivalents. We therefore need not reach the district court’s 

conclusion that claim vitiation additionally forecloses 

infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.

I. Claim Construction

“[T]he ultimate issue of the proper construction of a 

claim should be treated as a question of law.” Teva 

Pharms. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 831, 839 

(2015). “[W]hen the district court reviews only evidence 

intrinsic to the patent (the patent claims and specifications, along with the patent’s prosecution history), the 

judge’s determination will amount solely to a determination of law, and the Court of Appeals will review that 

construction de novo.” Id. at 841. When the district court 

must go beyond the intrinsic evidence and consider “extrinsic evidence in order to understand, for example, the 

background science or the meaning of a term in the relevant art during the relevant time period,” our review of 

these factual findings is for clear error. Id. We conclude 

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CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG 7

from our de novo review of the intrinsic record that the 

patentee unambiguously defined the term at issue.

We begin our analysis with the intrinsic record. See 

Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1317 (Fed. Cir. 

2005) (en banc).

The district court correctly took the patentee’s decision to divide the relevant portions of its independent 

claims into subparts labeled “a)” and “b)” to suggest an 

intention to distinguish the structures claimed in the two 

subparts. We have taken this approach in prior cases. 

See Shire Dev., LLC v. Watson Pharm., Inc., 787 F.3d 

1359, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2015); Default Proof Credit Card 

Sys., Inc. v. Home Depot U.S.A., Inc., 412 F.3d 1291, 

1299–300 (Fed. Cir. 2005). We disagree, however, with 

the district court on which structural elements these 

subparts describe. Subpart a) (“the lid is attached by a 

hinge to an upper housing portion of the container, the lid 

has an outer periphery that extends over at least a portion of the container, the lid is provided with a skirt that 

extends downwardly therefrom”) consists of three independent clauses spliced together with commas. The 

subject of each clause is “the lid.” We therefore find this 

subpart to refer to the lid. Subpart b) (“the container has 

a container base, and a sidewall extending upwardly from 

the container base”) describes the container. We find that

subpart b) addresses the container. This language implies that the patent’s drafter viewed the lid (subpart a))

and container (subpart b)) as distinct. That implication, 

however, does not inform our determination whether the 

upper housing portion of the container is separable from 

the rest of the container.

We next turn to the specification to determine whether the patentee explicitly or implicitly defined the claim 

term at issue. We agree with the district court that the 

specification consistently and exclusively uses the term 

“upper housing” in the context of the two-piece embodiCase: 15-1124 Document: 47-2 Page: 7 Filed: 03/22/2016
8 CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG

ment. See ’137 Patent at 2:23–31, 3:7–9, 4:7–22, Fig. 14. 

The patentee’s repeated and consistent use of the term

“upper housing portion” to describe a separable part of a 

two-piece container implicitly defines the term to limit it 

to the two-piece embodiment. See, e.g., Virnetx, Inc. v. 

Cisco Sys., Inc., 767 F.3d 1308, 1318 (Fed. Cir. 2014); ICU 

Med., Inc. v. Alaris Med. Sys., Inc., 558 F.3d 1368, 1374–

75 (Fed. Cir. 2009). Likewise, the absence of this term in 

any description of the one-piece embodiment reinforces 

this implicit definition.

Beyond the claim language and the specification, the 

intrinsic record also encompasses the patent’s prosecution 

history. Süd Chemie notes that the ’137 patent issued 

from a continuation-in-part application, and that this 

continuation-in-part application added the term “upper 

housing portion” in both the claims and the specification. 

It also explains that during the prosecution of the application that led to the ’137 patent, the patentee deleted the 

term “upper housing portion” from the claims and later 

added the term back in. It claims that these additions 

and deletions support its proposed construction of the 

term but points us to no context supporting this assertion. 

We see nothing in the prosecution history to suggest that 

these additions and deletions impart any meaning to the 

term at issue. 

We find that, because the specification consistently 

and exclusively uses the term “upper housing portion” to 

refer to two-piece containers, the intrinsic record unambiguously restricts the term to literally encompass only 

two-piece embodiments. CSP argues that the district 

court improperly found an extrinsic dictionary definition 

to trump the intrinsic evidence in arriving at its claim 

construction. We disagree with that characterization. 

And even if the district court were to have erred by elevating the extrinsic record above the intrinsic, this error 

would be harmless because the intrinsic record is conCase: 15-1124 Document: 47-2 Page: 8 Filed: 03/22/2016
CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG 9

sistent with the conclusion the district court drew from 

the challenged extrinsic evidence.

We therefore affirm the district court’s construction of 

the term, which we view to appropriately limit it to literally encompass only the two-piece embodiment. 

II. Infringement by Equivalents

CSP additionally challenges the district court’s summary judgment of non-infringement under the doctrine of 

equivalents. The district court found CSP’s assertion of 

infringement by equivalents to be barred by both the 

disclosure-dedication and the claim-vitiation doctrines. 

CSP asserts that each of these findings was erroneous.

When reviewing a grant of summary judgment, we 

apply the regional circuit’s standard of review. JVC 

Kenwood Corp. v. Nero, Inc., 797 F.3d 1039, 1041 (Fed. 

Cir. 2015) (citing Lexion Med., LLC v. Northgate Techs., 

Inc., 641 F.3d 1352, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2011)). The Seventh 

Circuit “review[s a] grant of summary judgment de novo, 

applying the same standards as the district court and 

viewing the record and all reasonable inferences to be 

drawn from it in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” 520 S. Mich. Ave. Assocs. v. Unite Here 

Local 1, 760 F.3d 708, 718 (7th Cir. 2014) (citing Griffin v. 

City of Milwaukee, 74 F.3d 824, 826–27 (7th Cir. 1996)). 

“Summary judgment is appropriate only if there is no 

genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Id. (citing 

Griffin, 74 F.3d at 827; Fed. R. Civ. P. 56). “Whether the 

disclosure-dedication rule prevents a patentee from 

pursuing a doctrine of equivalents infringement theory is 

a question of law we review de novo.” SanDisk Corp. v. 

Kingston Tech. Co., 695 F.3d 1348, 1364 (Fed. Cir. 2012). 

We begin with the disclosure-dedication doctrine. 

This doctrine is based on the general notion that “when a 

patent drafter discloses but declines to claim subject 

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10 CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG

matter, . . . this action dedicates that unclaimed subject 

matter to the public.” Johnson & Johnston Assocs. v. R.E. 

Serv., 285 F.3d 1046, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (en banc). The

disclosure-dedication doctrine bars a patentee from using 

the doctrine of equivalents to recapture claim scope that it 

disclosed in the specification but did not literally include 

in the patent’s claims. Id. This doctrine applies even if

the patentee later claimed this disclosed subject matter in 

a continuation application. Id. at 1055. 

We agree with the district court that the disclosurededication doctrine bars CSP’s claim of infringement by 

equivalents. The patent’s specification discloses two 

embodiments of CSP’s invention: the two-piece container 

including a separable upper housing portion and the onepiece container without a separable upper housing portion. But all asserted claims are directed to the embodiment with the separable upper housing portion. The 

disclosure-dedication doctrine therefore bars CSP from 

pursuing a theory of infringement by equivalents that 

would extend its claim scope to encompass this unclaimed 

embodiment. A later-filed continuation application based 

on the application that led to the patent in suit reinforces 

our view that the district court appropriately applied the 

disclosure-dedication doctrine. This continuation application resulted in a patent, and neither the continuation 

application as published nor the patent that ultimately

issued from it contains the “upper housing portion” claim

limitation. See U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2013/0098934 

A1; U.S. Patent No. 8,528,778. The patentee’s decision to 

claim the upper housing portion in the patent in suit and 

not to claim it in this continuation patent implies an 

intent for the two patents to cover different claim scope. 

The disclosure-dedication doctrine appropriately applies 

to bar CSP from using the doctrine of equivalents to erase 

this distinction between its two patents. See Johnson & 

Johnston Assocs., 285 F.3d at 1055.

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CSP argues that the disclosure-dedication doctrine

does not apply here because the specification does not 

explicitly state that the one-piece embodiment is an 

“alternative” to the two-piece embodiment. As CSP notes, 

we have held that “the public notice function of patents 

suggests that before unclaimed subject matter is deemed 

to have been dedicated to the public, that unclaimed 

subject matter must have been identified by the patentee 

as an alternative to a claim limitation.” Pfizer, Inc. v. 

Teva Pharms. USA, Inc., 429 F.3d 1364, 1379 (Fed. Cir. 

2005); accord SanDisk, 695 F.3d at 1366–67. But the 

requirement Pfizer and SanDisk set out is not as farreaching as CSP makes it out to be. In Pfizer, the plaintiff sought to expand the reach of its claim through the 

doctrine of equivalents to encompass a product lacking a 

claimed active compound and instead containing a substitute compound that had similar relevant properties. 

Pfizer, 429 F.3d at 1378. The specification referenced this 

substitute compound and the class of compounds to which 

it belonged, but not as an active ingredient in a formulation. Id. We found the disclosure-dedication doctrine not 

to apply there because, although the patentee disclosed 

the substitute compound it now sought to include in its 

claims’ scope, it never did so as something that could 

function as an alternative to the claimed compounds. Id. 

SanDisk addressed an unclaimed embodiment disclosed 

only in a patent that the patent in suit incorporated by 

reference. There, because the specification of the patent 

in suit referred to this other patent only in “general 

terms” rather than pointing to it as containing any alternative to any claimed embodiment, we found the patent in 

suit’s disclosure not to have dedicated this unclaimed 

embodiment. SanDisk, 695 F.3d at 1366–67. The requirement that the patent must identify the dedicated 

embodiment as an alternative to a claimed embodiment is 

therefore not, as CSP suggests, one of form requiring us to 

identify some language specifically stating that an embodiment is an “alternative.” If that were the case, an artful 

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12 CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG

drafter could avoid describing embodiments as alternatives and make the patent immune to the disclosurededication doctrine. Instead, the requirement is one of 

substance where we determine from the specification’s 

disclosure whether “one of ordinary skill would have come 

to the conclusion that the inventor[] ha[s] identified [the 

unclaimed embodiment] as an alternative to [the claimed 

embodiment].” Pfizer, 429 F.3d at 1379. Here, one of skill 

in the art would understand from the specification that 

the inventor contemplated that the one-piece and twopiece designs were alternative ways to construct a container. E.g., ’137 patent at 4:4–9 (“In one embodiment, 

the containers can be formed as a single closed unit, with 

the hinge joining the lid portion to the container portion. 

In yet another embodiment, the container assembly 

comprising the base and upper housing portion can be 

molded separately.”). The existence of a continuation-inpart application claiming the one-piece embodiment 

further supports our conclusion that the patentee viewed 

these two embodiments as alternatives.

Because the district court properly concluded that the 

disclosure-dedication doctrine barred CSP from asserting 

that the disclosed one-piece embodiment falls within the 

scope of the asserted claims, CSP cannot succeed in its 

claim of infringement by equivalents. We therefore do not 

need to reach the district court’s finding that claim vitiation additionally barred a showing of infringement by 

equivalents.

CONCLUSION

We affirm the district court’s construction of “upper 

housing portion” as limiting the claims’ scope to two-piece 

containers whose upper housing portion is separable from 

the base. We therefore also affirm the district court’s 

grant of summary judgment of no literal infringement. 

Because we agree with the district court that the disclosure-dedication doctrine bars CSP’s assertion that even 

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CSP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. v. SUD-CHEMIE AG 13

under the district court’s construction the doctrine of 

equivalents expands its claims to capture the one-piece 

embodiment it disclosed in its specification, we likewise 

affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment of 

non-infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.

AFFIRMED

COSTS

No costs.

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