Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01102/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01102-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Blue Ridge X-Ray Company, Inc.
Appellee
Drgem Corporation
Appellee
Drgem USA, Inc.
Appellee
Sociedad Espanola De Electromedicina Y Calidad, S.A.
Appellant

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA DE ELECTROMEDICINA Y 

CALIDAD, S.A.,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

BLUE RIDGE X-RAY COMPANY, INC., DRGEM 

USA, INC., DRGEM CORPORATION,

Defendants-Appellees

______________________ 

2015-1102

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

Western District of North Carolina in No. 1:10-cv-00159-

MR, Judge Martin Reidinger.

______________________ 

Decided: July 31, 2015 

______________________ 

BRADLEY F. RADEMAKER, Neal, Gerber & Eisenberg, 

LLP, Chicago, IL, argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also 

represented by MICHAEL RYAN TURNER. 

BRADY J. FULTON, Northup, McConnell & Sizemore, 

Asheville, NC, argued for defendants-appellees. 

______________________ 

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2 SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA v. BLUE RIDGE X-RAY COMPANY

Before LOURIE, SCHALL, and LINN, Circuit Judges.

LINN, Circuit Judge. 

Sociedad Espanola de Electromedicina y Calidad, S.A. 

(“SEDECAL”) appeals the district court’s construction of 

certain claim terms of U.S. Patent No. 6,642,829 (the 

“’829 patent”) and its grant of Blue Ridge X-Ray Co., 

DRGEM USA, Inc. and DRGEM Corp.’s (“Blue Ridge’s”)

motion to amend their invalidity contentions pursuant to 

which the district court granted summary judgment that 

the asserted claims of the ’829 patent are invalid and not 

infringed. See Sociedad Espanola de Electromedicina y 

Calidad, S.A. v. Blue Ridge X-Ray Co., Inc., 47 F. Supp.

3d 381 (W.D.N.C. 2014) (“Merits Op.”); 2013 WL 4211846

(W.D.N.C. May 15, 2013) (“Construction Op.”). We revise

the district court’s construction of the challenged claim 

terms and, accordingly, reverse its grant of summary 

judgment.

I. BACKGROUND1

A. The ’829 Patent

The ’829 patent issued from U.S. Patent Application 

No. 09/889,534 (the “’534 application”). The patent relates to a high voltage transformer consisting of positive 

and negative voltage elements arranged into two separate 

groups that are separated by a single insulating barrier. ’829 patent abstract; col.2 ll.18–24. The purpose of 

the invention is to create a more cost and size-efficient 

high voltage transformer. Id. at col.1 ll.5–7.

Claim 1 is the only independent claim and recites, 

with emphases added:

1 As we write for the parties, we assume familiarity 

with the underlying facts.

 

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SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA v. BLUE RIDGE X-RAY COMPANY 3

1. A high voltage transformer having a plurality of 

elements for voltage transformers, said elements 

comprising:

. . . 

a magnetic core (7, 7′),

. . . 

wherein each rectifier, filter, resistive divider, high voltage switch, magnetic core, 

has a first end and a second end,

each first end being connected to zero 

voltage level;

each second end being opposite to each 

first end; said rectifiers, filters, resistive 

dividers, high voltage switches, magnetic 

cores, are arranged in two differentiated 

groups, 

a first group comprising positive voltage 

elements and

a second group comprising negative voltage elements; the positive voltage elements are separated from the negative 

voltage elements by solid insulating 

means in two insulated chambers . . . . 

B. The Procedural History

The parties disputed the proper construction of the 

phrase “two insulated chambers.” Construction Op. at *7. 

According to SEDECAL, it meant two “electrically insulated” chambers, whereas according to Blue Ridge it 

meant two “chambers [that are] enclosed and isolated 

from each other, that is, physically separated.” Id. at *7–

8. The district court ultimately construed “two insulated 

chambers” as “two different chambers that are insulated 

from each other.” Id. at *10.

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The district court ultimately granted summary judgment that the asserted claims are inoperative and therefore invalid under §§ 101 and 112. Merits Op., 47 F. 

Supp. 3d at 384–87. According to the district court, the 

phrase “said . . . magnetic cores, are arranged in two 

differentiated groups,” indicates that the transformer 

contains two separate and unconnected cores. Id. at 385. 

“Based on that construction,” the district court concluded,

“it is undisputed that the ’829 Patent claims describe a 

device that does not function.” Id. at 386. 

The district court further found that Blue Ridge’s 

products did not meet the “two insulated chambers” 

limitation because Blue Ridge’s transformers had two 

chambers that “open[ed] directly into one another,” 

“lack[ed] any physical barrier between portions of the two 

regions,” and because “oil is able to flow freely throughout 

the entire housing.” See id. at 387. It also found that 

Blue Ridge’s transformers did not meet the “magnetic 

cores” limitation, because they contained only a single 

core ring. See id. at 387–88.

SEDECAL appeals. This court has jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

II. DISCUSSION

A. Standards of Review

The “ultimate interpretation” of a claim term, as well 

as interpretations of “evidence intrinsic to the patent (the 

patent claims and specifications, along with the patent’s 

prosecution history),” are legal conclusions, which this 

court reviews de novo. Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, 

Inc., 135 S. Ct. 831, 841 (2015). However, where a district 

court “make[s] subsidiary factual findings about . . . 

extrinsic evidence[,] th[e] subsidiary factfinding must be 

reviewed for clear error on appeal.” Id. Where “there is 

no indication that the district court made any factual 

findings that underlie its [claim] constructions,” we reCase: 15-1102 Document: 38-2 Page: 4 Filed: 07/31/2015
SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA v. BLUE RIDGE X-RAY COMPANY 5

view the district court’s constructions entirely de novo. 

Shire Dev., LLC v. Watson Pharm., Inc., 787 F.3d 1359, 

1368 (Fed. Cir. 2015).

“This court reviews the district court’s grant or denial 

of summary judgment under the law of the regional 

circuit,” Lexion Med., LLC v. Northgate Techs., Inc., 641 

F.3d 1352, 1358 (Fed. Cir. 2011), here the Fourth Circuit. 

The Fourth Circuit “review[s] a district court’s decision to 

grant summary judgment de novo, applying the same 

legal standards as the district court, and viewing all facts 

and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most 

favorable to the nonmoving party.” Harris v. Norfolk S. 

Ry. Co., 784 F.3d 954, 962 (4th Cir. 2015) (citations omitted). 

B. Claim Construction

Claim terms are generally given “the meaning that 

the term would have to a person of ordinary skill in the 

art in question at the time of the invention.” Phillips v. 

AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en 

banc) (citations omitted). “[T]he person of ordinary skill 

in the art is deemed to read the claim term not only in the 

context of the particular claim in which the disputed term 

appears, but in the context of the entire patent, including 

the specification.” Id. at 1313.

The parties dispute the proper construction of two 

claim terms: “two insulated chambers” and “magnetic 

core.” Because the district court relied only on intrinsic 

evidence in its claim construction, we review its claim 

construction entirely de novo. 

1. “Two insulated chambers”

In its original claim construction order, the district 

court construed “two insulated chambers” as “two different chambers that are insulated from each other.” Construction Op. at *10. The district court elaborated on this 

construction in its summary judgment order, explaining 

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6 SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA v. BLUE RIDGE X-RAY COMPANY

that this meant the two chambers could not “open directly 

into one another,” could not have “oil [that] is able to flow 

freely throughout the entire housing,” and required a 

“physical barrier between portions of the two regions.” 

Merits Op., 47 F. Supp. 3d at 387.

SEDECAL argues that that the district court erred in 

construing the claims to require more than electrical 

insulation. According to SEDECAL, both intrinsic and 

extrinsic evidence shows that the word “insulated” means 

electrically insulated. Blue Ridge, for its part, argues 

that both the word “insulated” and the word “chambers” 

imply physical isolation. According to Blue Ridge, this 

construction is supported by the specification and the 

prosecution history.

The claims of the ’829 patent are no model of clarity. 

The very fact that both parties suggest defining the term 

“two insulated chambers” by adding words—SEDECAL 

suggesting that it should be construed to be “two electrically insulated chambers” and Blue Ridge suggesting “two 

isolated and insulated chambers”—reflects the fact that 

clearer drafting would have been helpful. Construction 

Op. at *7. As a result, the district court struggled with 

how to properly construe the claims. While we do not 

fault the district court’s efforts to make sense of the 

patent language, we conclude on the basis of all the 

evidence that the district court erred in its constructions. 

On the record before us, the claim term “two insulated

chambers” simply refers to electrically insulated chambers. The Background of the Invention explains that the 

difficulty with prior art transformers was in “achieving 

the electrical insulation between the various elements.” ’829 patent col.1 ll.16–17; see id. at col.1 ll.29–42. 

The Description of the Invention explains that one benefit 

of the invention is reducing “the number of . . . electrical 

insulation parts.” Id. at col.3 l.14–16. The patent’s focus 

on electrical insulation reflects the fact that the invention 

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involves placing elements of similar electrical voltage in 

close proximity to reduce “the insulator filling.” Id. at 

col.4 ll.47–49. This plain and ordinary meaning of “insulated” is confirmed by the dictionary of the Institute of 

Electrical and Electronics Engineers (“IEEE”), which

defines “insulated” as “. . . offering a high resistance to the 

passage of current . . . .” IEEE 100: The Authoritative 

Dictionary of IEEE Standard Terms 564 (7th ed. 2000).

The district court recognized that construing “insulated chambers” as electrically insulated “has a common 

sense appeal.” Construction Op. at *7. Nevertheless, it

concluded that the patentees disavowed this definition 

during prosecution. Id. at *8–10. The district court 

placed great weight on the patentees’ statement during 

prosecution describing their invention as requiring “different and isolated chambers,” quoting this language 

three different times. Id. at *9, *10 (quoting ’534 application at applicants remarks (May 27, 2003) (emphases in 

original)). The district court’s quote of the prosecution 

history was inaccurate. The prosecution history refers to 

the chambers as being “different and insulated,” but 

never refers to them as being isolated. What was referred to as being “isolated” were the “different and 

isolated columns.” ’534 application, applicants remarks 

(May 27, 2003). The prosecution history thus fails to 

support the district court’s characterization of the two 

chambers as being so isolated that nothing can pass from 

one to the other. The prosecution history certainly does 

not rise to the level of a clear and unmistakable disavowal.

Blue Ridge argues that the plain and ordinary meaning of “chambers” requires some sort of an enclosure. 

True enough. But Blue Ridge has failed to show that such 

an enclosure must be so closed or isolated as to prevent oil 

or other elements from passing from one enclosure to 

another. 

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Blue Ridge also argues that because the two chambers 

themselves have no electrical charge, the adjective “insulated” cannot refer to electrical insulation. Blue Ridge 

ignores the fact that the claim recites “positive voltage 

elements [that] are separated from the negative voltage 

elements by solid insulating means in two insulated 

chambers.” The purpose of the insulation is to electrically

insulate the charged voltage elements found in the two 

chambers from one another, not just the chambers themselves. 

Finally, Blue Ridge argues that Figure 3 shows two 

chambers that are “enclosed or physically separate chambers.” Appellee’s Br. at 55. At best that suggests that two 

isolated chambers are within the scope of the claim. It 

does not suggest that the claim is so limited. See GE 

Lighting Solutions, LLC v. AgiLight, Inc., 750 F.3d 1304, 

1309 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (“while the specifications only 

disclose a single embodiment of an IDC connector in 

Figure 6, they do not disavow or disclaim the plain meaning of IDC connector or otherwise limit it to that embodiment”).

Thus, the proper construction of “two insulated chambers” is “two electrically insulated chambers.”

2. “Magnetic cores”

At the district court, SEDECAL argued that “magnetic cores” refers to two core legs, which are connected by 

yokes. Merits Op., 47 F. Supp. 3d at 385. The district 

court rejected this argument based on its construction of 

“two insulated chambers” and because nothing in the ’829 

patent suggested that the “claimed device [had] core ‘legs’ 

or ‘yokes’ or indicates that the device contains anything 

less than two magnetic cores.” Id. The district court 

noted that it is undisputed that a transformer with two 

separate magnetic cores that are isolated and sealed off 

from each other would be inoperable. See id. at 386–87.

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SEDECAL continues to argue that the “magnetic 

cores” refers to core legs. It contends that the phrase 

“magnetic cores” is a synecdoche: it sometimes means a 

full core ring but, in other contexts, it means just the legs 

of a full core ring. The second meaning should be applied 

here, SEDECAL believes, because it is the only interpretation that makes the claims operable. Blue Ridge, on the 

other hand, argues that the plain and ordinary meaning 

of “magnetic cores” only refers to full core rings and not to 

core legs.

Both parties argue that the figures of the ’829 patent 

support their positions. Figure 1 of the ’829 patent shows 

a yoke connecting the 7 and 7’ core legs that are found in 

the two chambers, while Figure 3 shows no connection 

between the two chambers. SEDECAL argues that there 

is more to the transformer in Figure 3 than meets the eye 

and it actually allows for a yoke between the two legs. 

That yoke was omitted because it was “not relevant to 

what is being shown.” Appellant’s Br. at 34. Blue Ridge 

claims that “there is a contradiction between” Figures 1 

and 3. Appellee’s Br. at 38.

In this context, the term “magnetic cores” refers to the 

legs of a full core ring. The district court’s construction to 

the contrary was error. First, Figure 1 of the ’829 patent 

shows a yoke connecting the 7 and 7’ core legs. While 

that yoke is absent in Figure 3, it is more reasonable to 

conclude that Figure 3 omitted certain elements of the 

transformer for the sake of brevity than to find Figures 1 

and 3 contradictory, as Blue Ridge claims.

Second, the plain and ordinary meaning of the phrase 

“magnetic core” can refer to core legs. For example, Blue 

Ridge concedes that in U.S. Patent No. 6,278,355 (the 

“’355 patent”), the patentees—including Philip J. Hopkinson, Blue Ridge’s expert in this case—“clearly and expressly equated the terms ‘leg,’ ‘core,’ ‘magnetic core,’ and 

‘transformer core,’ and consistently used those terms to 

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10 SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA v. BLUE RIDGE X-RAY COMPANY

mean the same thing.” Appellee’s Br. at 36; see id. (the 

patent “repeatedly us[ed] these different terms interchangeably to refer to the same item”). While it is true 

that the ’829 patent actually uses the phrase “core leg[s]” 

to describe the prior art, see ’829 patent col.2 ll.8–14, that 

is not persuasive evidence that the term “magnetic core” 

does not mean “core legs.” “[T]he general assumption . . . that different terms have different meanings” 

applies to “terms in the body of a claim,” but not necessarily elsewhere in the specification where the context 

indicates otherwise. Symantec Corp. v. Computer Assocs., 

Int’l, Inc., 522 F.3d 1279, 1289 (Fed. Cir. 2008).

Blue Ridge argues that a synecdoche is inherently 

ambiguous and should, therefore, be construed against 

SEDECAL. That is not the law. Where a claim term 

“ha[s] more than one plain and ordinary meaning,” we 

look to the specification to ascertain which definition is 

intended. See Kaneka Corp. v. Xiamen Kingdomway Grp. 

Co., --- F.3d ----, 2015 WL 3613644, at *4 (Fed. Cir. June 

10, 2015).

From the foregoing, we conclude that the phrase 

“magnetic core” as used in the specification of the ’829 

patent refers to core legs connected by yokes. The district 

court’s contrary conclusion is unsupported by the specification and is erroneous.

C. Invalidity and Infringement

The district court’s summary judgments of invalidity 

and non-infringement were premised on its erroneous 

claim constructions. Those decisions are therefore vacated and remanded.

D. Motion to Amend Invalidity Contentions

SEDECAL argues that the district court abused its 

discretion by allowing Blue Ridge to amend their invalidity contentions to raise an inoperability defense. Because 

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SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA v. BLUE RIDGE X-RAY COMPANY 11

the claims, as properly construed, are not inoperable, this 

argument is now moot.

III. CONCLUSION

For the forgoing reasons, the district court’s claim 

constructions are revised as stated herein and its grant of 

summary judgment of invalidity and non-infringement is 

reversed. The case is remanded for further proceedings 

consistent with this opinion.

REVERSED AND REMANDED

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