Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-cand-4_04-cv-00634/USCOURTS-cand-4_04-cv-00634-28/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Monsanto Company
Counter-claimant
The Regents of the University of California
Counter-defendant

Document Text:

United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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28 1 Pursuant to Civ. L.R. 7-13,this order shall notbe cited except as provided by Civ.

L. R. 3-4(e).

United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

NOT FOR CITATION

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA,

Plaintiff, No. C 04-0634 PJH

v. ORDER DENYING DEFENDANT’S

MOTION FOR LEAVE TO FILE

MONSANTO COMPANY, MOTION FOR RECONSIDERATION

Defendant.

_______________________________/

Before this court is defendant’s motion for leave to file a motion for reconsideration on

the basis of the Federal Circuit’s recent decision in Phillips v. AWH Corporation, 415 F.3d

1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005), disapproving of certain holdings in Texas Digital Sys., Inc. v. Telegenix,

308 F.3d 1193 (Fed. Cir. 2002), a case upon which this court cited in its claim construction

order. Plaintiff has filed an opposition. Having read the papers and carefully considered the

relevant legal authority, the court hereby DENIES defendant’s motion, for the reasons that

follow.1

While Phillips does hold that the courts are not to rely on extrinsic evidence such as

dictionaries at the expense of the specification when construing claims, see 415 F.3d at

1320-21, and disapproves of Texas Digital to the extent it implied otherwise, Phillips also

cautions the district court that under no circumstances are limitations from the specification to

be read into the claims either. Id. at 1323. Contrary to Monsanto’s position, Phillips does not

require that the court ignore the ordinary meaning of the terms in favor of importing limitations

from the specification. See id. at 1312 (holding that “the words of a claim are generally given

Case 4:04-cv-00634-PJH Document 494 Filed 09/20/05 Page 1 of 2
United States District Court

For the Northern District of California

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their ordinary and customary meaning”).

Monsanto challenges the court’s claim construction as improperly ignoring the

limitations in figure 1 of the ‘941 patent specification. However, as stated in the claim

construction order, “there is no intent expressed in the claim language to limit the claim to only

the DNA molecule sequence disclosed in Figure 1 of the ‘941 patent,” Claim Construction

Order at 6. Even after Phillips, the court remains barred from reading the specification’s

limitations into the claims of the ‘941 patent. 

Even if, as Monsanto argues, figure 1 of the ’941 patent is the only embodiment

provided in the specification, Phillips reiterates the Federal Circuit’s well-established doctrine

that a single embodiment standing alone is an insufficient basis for importing those limitations

into the claim. 415 F.3d at 1323. See also Claim Construction Order at 6 (citing cases). The

court’s order is thus consistent with Phillips and the general canons of claim construction. 

Furthermore, the court’s claim construction order is based solely on intrinsic evidence

as defined by Phillips – the court did not rely on dictionaries, expert testimony, or any other

evidence other than that presented in the claims, specifications, and prosecution history of the

‘941 patent. See Claim Construction Order at 15 (stating that court did not rely on any

extrinsic evidence). Monsanto does not appear to dispute this. Thus, the Phillips clarification

of the weight to give certain kinds of extrinsic evidence in claim construction has no relevance

to the claim construction performed by this court.

Monsanto’s motion for leave to file a motion for reconsideration is DENIED. This order

fully adjudicates the matter listed at no. 383 on the clerk’s docket for this case. 

IT IS SO ORDERED.

Dated: September 20, 2005

______________________________

PHYLLIS J. HAMILTON

United States District Judge

Case 4:04-cv-00634-PJH Document 494 Filed 09/20/05 Page 2 of 2