Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01777/USCOURTS-ca13-15-01777-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
Appellant
MacDermid Printing Solutions, L.L.C.
Appellee

Document Text:

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS AND COMPANY,

Plaintiff-Appellant

v.

MACDERMID PRINTING SOLUTIONS, L.L.C.,

Defendant-Appellee

______________________ 

2015-1777

______________________ 

Appeal from the United States District Court for the 

District of New Jersey in No. 3:06-cv-03383-MLC-TJB, 

Judge Mary L. Cooper.

______________________ 

Decided: August 19, 2016

______________________ 

 CHARLES E. LIPSEY, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, 

Garrett & Dunner, LLP, Reston, VA, argued for plaintiffappellant. Also represented by HOWARD WARREN LEVINE,

AARON GLEATON CLAY, Washington, DC; MARY K.

FERGUSON, Boston, MA; JENNIFER SWAN, JEFFREY DANIEL 

SMYTH, Palo Alto, CA; MATTHEW JOSEPH RICCIARDI,

CHARLES D. OSSOLA, Vinson & Elkins LLP, Washington, 

DC. 

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2 E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 

JOHN RICHARD HORVACK, JR., Carmody Torrance Sandak & Hennessey LLP, New Haven, CT, argued for defendant-appellee. Also represented by FATIMA LAHNIN. 

______________________ 

Before PROST, Chief Judge, PLAGER and LOURIE, Circuit 

Judges.

LOURIE, Circuit Judge. 

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. (“DuPont”) appeals 

from the decision of the United States District Court for 

the District of New Jersey granting summary judgment 

that claims 1, 6, 22, 30, 33, 36, 39–41, and 48 of U.S. 

Patent 6,773,859 (“the ’859 patent”) are invalid as obvious, and that claims 1, 3–4, and 7–8 of U.S. Patent 

6,171,758 (“the ’758 patent”), as construed by the district 

court, were not infringed by MacDermid Printing Solutions, L.L.C. (“MacDermid”). See E.I. du Pont de Nemours 

& Co. v. MacDermid Printing Sols., L.L.C., No. 06-3383, 

2014 WL 4657300 (D.N.J. Sept. 17, 2014) (“Summary 

Judgment Order”); E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. 

MacDermid Printing Sols., L.L.C., No. 06-3383, 2010 WL 

988549 (D.N.J. Mar. 15, 2010) (“Claim Construction 

Order”). Because the district court did not err in granting 

summary judgment of invalidity of the ’859 patent or in 

granting summary judgment of noninfringement of the 

’758 patent, we affirm. 

BACKGROUND

A 

DuPont owns the ’859 patent, directed to a process of 

making a flexographic printing plate used to print images 

on flexible materials. The ’859 patent claims priority 

from a provisional application filed on March 6, 2001, ’859 

patent, Certificate of Corr. dated July 26, 2005; see also

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. MacDermid Printing 

Sols., L.L.C., 525 F.3d 1353, 1362–63 (Fed. Cir. 2008), and 

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E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 3

was considered by the district court to have a date of

invention on or before June 9, 1999, Summary Judgment 

Order, 2014 WL 4657300, at *9. 

A flexographic printing plate bearing the image to be 

printed is typically prepared from an “imaging” process 

and a “development” process. As shown below, a flexographic printing plate consists of multiple layers, including a base support layer and a photopolymerizable layer, 

which contains photoinitiators, monomers, and elastomeric binders. During the imaging process, selected areas of 

the photopolymerizable layer are exposed to ultraviolet 

(“UV”) light, which causes the exposed areas to polymerize. The unpolymerized material is then removed in the 

development process, leaving the polymerized material on 

the plate, which forms the relief image to be printed. 

Joint App. (“J.A.”) 3692.

As of June 1999, there existed two methods for imaging: analog and digital. Summary Judgment Order, 2014 

WL 4657300, at *16. Analog imaging was first developed 

in the 1950s. In analog imaging, a sheet bearing a negative of the image to be printed is placed on top of the 

photopolymerizable layer. A transparent coversheet is 

then placed over the negative. The plate is then exposed 

to UV light, which passes through the transparent areas 

of the negative and causes the exposed portions of the 

photopolymerizable layer to polymerize. The opaque 

areas of the negative block the UV light and thus prevent 

the photopolymerizable layer underneath those areas 

from polymerizing. After the removal of the coversheet 

and negative, the unpolymerized portions of the photopolymerizable layer are removed in the development 

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process, leaving only the relief image. The analog imaging process is illustrated below.

 

J.A. 3692–93. 

In 1992, DuPont developed the digital imaging technology, in which a thin, opaque infrared ablation layer is 

applied over the photopolymerizable layer. That ablation 

layer can block UV light, but can be removed by an infrared laser. Thus, one difference between a digital plate 

and an analog plate is that a digital plate has an ablation 

layer. In digital imaging, the image to be printed is 

digitized and stored in a computer. The computer then 

guides an infrared laser to imagewise remove, or ablate, 

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E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 5

select portions of the ablation layer. That process creates 

an in-situ mask directly on top of the photopolymerizable 

layer. The plate is then exposed to UV light, and the 

openings in the in-situ mask allow the UV light to pass 

through, such that the exposed portions of the photopolymerizable layer undergo polymerization. The unpolymerized material, together with the ablation layer above 

it, is then removed in the development process. The 

digital imaging process is illustrated below.

J.A. 3697–99. 

The “development” process follows the “imaging” process. As of June 1999, there existed the following development techniques: solvent, water, air knife, and thermal. 

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Summary Judgment Order, 2014 WL 4657300, at *16. 

According to DuPont, solvent and thermal development 

methods have been known since at least the 1960s. 

Appellant’s Br. 2. The solvent development method uses

chemical solvents to wash and remove the unpolymerized 

portions of the photopolymerizable layer. According to 

DuPont, although solvent development requires the use of 

chemical solvents, which posed certain environmental 

risks, the combination of analog imaging and solvent 

development has been widely used for decades. Id. at 11–

12. When DuPont developed digital imaging in the 1990s, 

it initially used the solvent method to develop the digitally imaged plates. That combination of digital imaging 

and solvent development is described in DuPont’s U.S. 

Patent 5,262,275 (“Fan”), J.A. 2421–29, which is prior art 

to the ’859 patent. 

In contrast, the thermal development method uses

heat to soften or liquefy the unpolymerized portions of the 

photopolymerizable layer, and then uses absorbent material, such as paper or felt, to blot away the unpolymerized 

material. The prior art, including U.S. Patent 5,175,072

(“Martens”), J.A. 2182–99, describes the combination of

analog imaging and thermal development. 

DuPont’s ’859 patent claims a process for making a 

flexographic printing plate that combines digital imaging 

and thermal development techniques. Claim 30 is illustrative of the ’859 patent claims at issue in this appeal. 

Reproduced in independent form, claim 30 reads:

30. A process for making a flexographic printing 

plate comprising: 

1) providing a photosensitive element comprising: at least one photopolymerizable 

layer on a support comprising an elastomeric binder, at least one monomer, and a 

photoinitiator, and at least one thermally 

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E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 7

polymerizable layer, wherein the thermally removable layer is

(a) an actinic radiation opaque layer comprising (i) at least one infrared absorbing material, (ii) a radiation opaque 

material, wherein (i) and (ii) can be 

the same or different, and at least one 

binder having a softening or melting 

temperature less than 190o C; 

2) imagewise exposing the photopolymerizable layer to actinic radiation forming polymerized portions and unpolymerized 

portions; and

3) thermally treating the element of step 2) 

by heating to a temperature sufficient to 

remove the thermally removable layer and 

to remove the unpolymerized portions of 

the photopolymerizable layer and form a 

relief. 

’859 patent col. 43 ll. 14–40, col. 46 ll. 26–27 (emphases 

added). Thus, step 1(a) of the claimed method requires a 

digital plate with an ablation layer that is thermally 

removable. Step 2 refers to the digital imaging process, 

and step 3 refers to the thermal development process, in 

which both the unpolymerized photopolymerizable material and the ablation layer above it are thermally removed. According to DuPont, it commercialized its digital 

thermal technology as Digital Cyrel® FAST in 2001. 

Appellant’s Br. 21.

B 

DuPont also owns the ’758 patent, directed to a flexographic printing plate having a very low degree of distortion during thermal development, the plate comprising a 

“dimensionally stable” polymeric substrate. ’758 patent, 

at [57] (abstract); id. col. 1 ll. 51–60. The ’758 patent 

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issued in January 2001 from an application filed in 1994. 

Claim 1 reads as follows:

1. A photosensitive plate suitable for use as a 

flexographic printing plate comprising a 

dimensionally stable, flexible, polymeric substrate and a photosensitive elastomer layer, 

wherein the plate has a thermal distortion in 

both the machine and the transverse directions which is less than 0.03% when the plate 

is exposed to actinic radiation and, after exposure, is developed at temperatures between 

100 and 180o C.

Id. col. 8 ll. 18–25 (emphases added). Claims 3–4 and 7–8 

all depend, directly or indirectly, from claim 1.

The specification of the ’758 patent teaches that the 

dimensional stability of the polymeric substrate “may be 

controlled through a special annealing process,” id. col. 2 

ll. 56–59 (emphasis added), and then describes the annealing process in detail, id. col. 2 l. 59–col. 3 l. 40. The 

specification also describes four examples, in which all of 

the annealed plates showed less thermal distortion than 

the unannealed control plates. Id. col. 5 l. 26–col. 7 l. 67. 

Moreover, the specification teaches that the substrate 

“optionally may be surface treated for better adhesion” 

and cites two prior art patents as disclosing such an 

optional adhesive bonding process. Id. col. 3 l. 66–col. 4 

l. 5 (emphasis added). During prosecution, the patentee

relied on the special annealing process, and characterized 

it as “critical” and “important” in order to overcome 

inherent anticipation and obviousness rejections. E.g., 

J.A. 2303–04, 2346–47, 2348, 2365, 2367. 

C 

In April 2006, DuPont sued MacDermid in the United 

States District Court for the District of Colorado, alleging 

that MacDermid infringed the ’859 and ’758 patents. 

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DuPont, 525 F.3d at 1355; Summary Judgment Order, 

2014 WL 4657300, at *1. In July 2006, the case was 

transferred from the District of Colorado to the District of 

New Jersey. DuPont, 525 F.3d at 1355.

The district court construed the “dimensionally stable” limitation in claim 1 of the ’758 patent. Claim Construction Order, 2010 WL 988549, at *5–9. The parties 

disputed whether “dimensionally stable” should be construed as requiring the “special annealing process” described in the ’758 patent, and the court agreed with 

MacDermid that “dimensionally stable” is so limited. Id.

at *5, *7. The court reasoned that the specification “repeatedly highlights the importance of annealing” in 

achieving the claimed dimensional stability, and that 

during prosecution, the applicants “repeatedly emphasized the whole notion of annealing” in order to overcome 

prior-art-based rejections. Id. at *7. The court therefore

adopted MacDermid’s proposed construction of “dimensionally stable,” which is:

A flexible polymeric substrate whose dimensional 

stability has been controlled through a special annealing process, namely an annealing process 

that: (1) is in addition and subsequent to the heat 

treating steps associated with manufacturing the 

polymeric film, (2) is not the process of bonding 

the photosensitive elastomer layer to the polymeric substrate, and (3) comprises: (i) heating the 

substrate to a temperature above its glass transition temperature but below its melting temperature and at or greater than the temperature to 

which the substrate is later subjected during 

thermal development, (ii) at tensions of less than 

200 psi, and (iii) for a time greater than the time 

required to bring the film to the annealing temperature, such that a specially annealed substrate 

has less thermally induced distortion than a nonspecially annealed substrate.

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Id. at *5, *9.

MacDermid then filed motions for summary judgment 

of, inter alia, invalidity of the ’859 patent and noninfringement of the ’758 patent. The district court granted 

summary judgment in favor of MacDermid on both issues. 

Summary Judgment Order, 2014 WL 4657300, at *1. 

The district court granted summary judgment that 

claims 1, 6, 22, 30, 33, 36, 39–41, and 48 of the ’859 patent 

would have been obvious over the cited prior art, including Martens and Fan.1 Id. at *9–20. The court found that

Martens teaches a process for developing an analog plate

using heat, id. at *10, and that Fan “was the first digital 

imaging patent,” which teaches developing a digital plate 

using solvents, id. at *11. The court found that the process claimed in the ’859 patent utilizes not only “the same 

technology and processes pertaining to digital imaging” as 

disclosed in Fan, but also “the same process of thermal 

development” as disclosed in Martens. Id. at *13.

The district court then found that there were “several 

reasons that would have prompted a person of ordinary 

skill to combine digital imaging technology and thermal 

development technology in the same way as the ’859 

patent.” Id. at *16. In particular, the court found that: 

 

1 In the district court, MacDermid also cited the following patent references to support its obviousness motion: (1) European Patent EP 0 741 330, U.S. Patent 

5,888,697, and U.S. Patent 5,925,500, as purportedly 

teaching digital imaging; and (2) European Patent EP 

0 665 471, International Patent Application Publication 

WO96/14603, U.S. Patent 3,264,103, U.S. Patent 

5,279,697, U.S. Patent 5,322,761, and U.S. Patent 

5,925,500, as purportedly teaching thermal development. 

J.A. 2937–38. But the district court primarily relied on 

Fan and Martens in its obviousness analysis.

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(1) there existed only two imaging and four development 

techniques, id.; (2) the prior art taught that digital imaging has certain benefits over analog imaging, and that 

thermal development has certain advantages over solvent 

development, id.; (3) thus, a person of ordinary skill would 

have been motivated “to combine digital imaging and 

thermal development in one sequential process to gain the 

benefits of both,” id.; (4) DuPont detailed the benefit of 

digital imaging in a 1997 article, describing digital plates 

as “truly superior,” and also detailed the benefit of thermal development at an April 1999 tradeshow, touting

thermal development as “revolutionary,” id. at *16–17 

(internal quotation marks omitted); and (5) thus, market 

forces would have “created a strong incentive” for a person 

of ordinary skill to combine “the revolutionary thermal 

process . . . with the truly superior digital plates,” and 

“one only needed to place a truly superior digital plate 

(after imagewise exposure) into a revolutionary thermal 

process,” or alternatively, “to upgrade an analog-thermal 

plate in a known manner to . . . a digital-thermal plate,” 

id. at *17 (internal quotation marks omitted).

The district court considered objective evidence of 

nonobviousness in the record, but found such evidence

insufficient to preclude summary judgment. Id. at *18–

19. The court criticized DuPont for “sensationaliz[ing]” 

the commercial success of its digital thermal Cyrel product because its own expert stated in his declaration that 

“marketplace acceptance of Cyrel was not immediate,” 

and that “only through working with initial customers . . . 

DuPont was able to develop a market for thermally developed plates over time.” Id. at *18 (internal quotation 

marks omitted). The court also criticized DuPont’s commercial success evidence on the bases that (1) DuPont 

provided percentage growth of yearly sales, “but fail[ed] to 

put those figures into context”; (2) DuPont presented 

evidence that Cyrel generated over $90 million in sales

from 2001 to 2006, but failed to “document more revealing 

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statistics, such as its profits”; (3) DuPont failed to mention that all thermally developed plates, including those

other than Cyrel, accounted for only 13% of the overall 

U.S. market for flexographic printing plates; and 

(4) DuPont’s dominant position in the flexographic printing plate market “reduce[d] the impact” of its proffered 

evidence of commercial success. Id. at *18–19. The court 

thus concluded that DuPont failed to adequately establish 

a nexus between the claimed invention and its purported 

commercial success. Id. at *19.

The district court also rejected DuPont’s argument of 

long-felt (seven years from 1992 to 1999) but unmet need 

because DuPont failed to establish a palpable need for 

digital thermal plates that existed for a long time. Id. 

Lastly, the court considered DuPont’s evidence of industry 

praise, namely, the Flexographic Technical Association’s

Technical Innovation Award for DuPont’s Cyrel product. 

The court acknowledged that the award “may be at least 

some evidence of industry praise,” but nevertheless concluded that it was “vastly insufficient to overcome MacDermid’s strong showing of obviousness.” Id. The court 

therefore concluded that the asserted claims of the ’859 

patent are invalid as obvious. Id. at *20.

The district court next considered MacDermid’s motion for summary judgment of noninfringement of the ’758 

patent. Id. at *20–25. MacDermid argued that its accused Digital CST plate did not contain a “dimensionally 

stable” substrate because the manufacturing process of 

the accused plate did not involve the “special annealing 

process” required by the claims under the district court’s 

construction. Id. at *20. DuPont sought to rely on an

adhesive drying process used by MacDermid’s contractor, 

Kimoto, to establish that the “dimensionally stable” 

limitation was met, but MacDermid introduced evidence 

to show that the adhesive drying process was not a “specially annealing process” that “controls” the “dimensional 

stability” of the substrate. Id.

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The district court reasoned that under its construction 

of “dimensionally stable,” the process of bonding the 

photosensitive layer to the polymeric substrate is not a 

“special annealing process.” Id. at *23. It then found that 

Kimoto’s adhesive drying process is part of the bonding 

process, and thus not an annealing process. Id. The court 

therefore granted summary judgment of noninfringement 

of claims 1, 3–4, and 7–8 of the ’758 patent. Id. 

Following the district court’s grant of summary judgment, DuPont moved for entry of final judgment under 

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 54(b). The district court 

granted DuPont’s motion and entered final judgment. 

DuPont timely appealed to this court. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).

DISCUSSION

When reviewing a district court’s grant of summary 

judgment, we apply the law of the regional circuit in 

which the district court sits, here, the Third Circuit. Teva 

Pharm. Indus. Ltd. v. AstraZeneca Pharm. LP, 661 F.3d 

1378, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2011). The Third Circuit “review[s] 

an order granting summary judgment de novo, applying 

the same standard” used by the district court. Azur v. 

Chase Bank, USA, Nat’l Ass’n, 601 F.3d 212, 216 (3d Cir. 

2010) (quotation omitted). Summary judgment is appropriate when, drawing all justifiable inferences in the 

nonmovant’s favor, “there is no genuine dispute as to any 

material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a 

matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a); Anderson v. Liberty 

Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 247–48 (1986). DuPont challenges the district court’s grants of summary judgment of 

invalidity of the ’859 patent and of noninfringement of the 

’758 patent. We review each of those decisions in turn.

A 

Obviousness is ultimately a question of law premised 

on underlying issues of fact, including: (1) the scope and 

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content of the prior art; (2) the level of ordinary skill in 

the pertinent art; (3) the differences between the claimed 

invention and the prior art; and (4) objective evidence 

such as commercial success, long-felt need, and the failure 

of others. KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 427 

(2007); Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 17–18 

(1966). A patent claim is invalid as obvious if an alleged 

infringer proves that the differences between the claimed 

subject matter and the prior art are such that the subject 

matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time of 

invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art. 35 

U.S.C. § 103(a) (2006). Patents are presumed to be valid, 

and overcoming that presumption requires clear and 

convincing evidence. 35 U.S.C. § 282; Microsoft Corp. v. 

i4i Ltd. P’ship, 564 U.S. 91, 95 (2011).

DuPont argues that the district court failed to draw 

reasonable inferences in its favor. DuPont asserts that 

the district court improperly relied on “market forces” and 

hindsight in finding a reason to combine digital imaging 

and thermal development. DuPont contends that digital 

imaging generated high quality plates, but that prior art 

thermal processes yielded poor quality plates. DuPont

notes that Fan, the first digital imaging patent, teaches 

only solvent development. Thus, DuPont continues, a 

skilled artisan would not have had a reason to use digital 

imaging to obtain a high quality image and then degrade 

that image with thermal development. DuPont also 

contends that Martens’s thermal process is not the same 

as the claimed process because Martens does not describe

a thermally removable ablation layer. DuPont argues 

that one would not have reasonably expected that the 

thermal process would successfully remove the ablation 

layer bound to the photopolymerizable layer necessary for 

digital imaging. DuPont additionally argues that the 

district court failed to properly consider the objective 

evidence, including unexpected results, copying by MacCase: 15-1777 Document: 53-2 Page: 14 Filed: 08/19/2016
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Dermid, commercial success, long-felt but unmet need, 

and industry praise. 

MacDermid responds that the district court correctly 

found “several reasons” for a skilled artisan to combine 

digital and thermal technologies, including market forces, 

limited prior art options of the imaging and development

processes, and known benefits of digital imaging and 

thermal development. MacDermid also points to printed 

publications prior to March 6, 2000, the § 102(b) critical 

date, which explicitly describe combining digital imaging 

and thermal development. MacDermid notes, moreover, 

that DuPont’s digital-solvent plates sold before the 

§ 102(b) critical date contain the same opaque infrared 

ablation layer as its later-marketed digital-thermal 

plates. Finally, MacDermid responds that the district 

court properly considered the objective evidence before 

reaching its ultimate conclusion of obviousness, and that 

DuPont’s objective evidence was sparse and without the 

required nexus.

We agree with MacDermid that the asserted claims of 

the ’859 patent would have been obvious at the time of the 

invention over the cited prior art. It is undisputed that 

digital imaging and thermal development are techniques

known in the prior art. In the district court, DuPont 

conceded that “the prior art contained various ‘digital 

solvent’ references (e.g., [Fan] . . . , DuPont’s DPU plate, 

and MacDermid’s CBU plates) that disclosed steps 1(a) 

and 2” of the claimed method, and also “contained various 

‘analog thermal’ references (e.g., [Martens] . . . ) that 

disclosed one or more layers above a photopolymerizable 

layer.” J.A. 7397. DuPont maintains, however, that the 

prior art does not teach or suggest the thermally removable ablation layer of step 1(a). DuPont also argues that a 

person of ordinary skill in the art would not have had a 

reason to carry out the claimed process of thermally 

developing a digitally imaged plate, and would not have 

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had a reasonable expectation of success in doing so. We 

disagree. 

The district court correctly found that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reason to combine 

digital imaging and thermal development in the same 

way as claimed in the ’859 patent. DuPont does not 

dispute that there were a finite number of options of 

imaging and development methods. Thus, a person of 

ordinary skill only needed to traverse finite prior art 

options by substituting one known technique for another. 

More importantly, the prior art highlights the advantages of digital imaging over analog imaging. In a 

1997 article, entitled “The Digital Difference,” J.A. 4193, 

published five years after the digital-solvent technology 

was invented, DuPont’s inventors reported that “digital 

plates print with finer highlights while retaining deeper 

shadows, and with lower dot gain than conventional 

printing throughout the tonal range,” J.A. 4196. They 

described digital imaging as “truly superior,” “gaining 

worldwide acceptance,” and “a fundamental technology 

improvement that enables expansion of the flexographic 

printing process into . . . new markets,” noting that orders 

for digital plates and digital exposure devices were “steadily increasing.” J.A. 4193, 4196, 4197. 

The prior art also describes the advantages of thermal 

development over solvent development. Martens, a 

patent issued in December 1992, teaches that those 

advantages include “a substantial reduction of plate 

making steps, plate making process time, and the elimination of potentially toxic by-product waste streams in 

plate making.” Martens at 4:23–34. Martens also describes actual examples that produced “excellent” images

after thermal development. Id. at 21:67–22:2, 26:21–22. 

Moreover, in April 1999, DuPont detailed the benefits of 

its Cyrel® FAST thermal technology at a U.S. tradeshow,

describing the technology as “revolutionary,” “a great leap 

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forward,” and a “breakthrough technology” that “reduce[s] 

platemaking time.” J.A. 3420. DuPont emphasized that, 

as compared to solvent development, the thermal method 

reduced platemaking time from over 3 hours to 1 hour

and produced “high quality” plates. Id. 

Accordingly, the prior art teaches significant benefits 

of both digital imaging and thermal development over 

their counterparts, providing a reason for a person of 

ordinary skill to combine them in one sequential process. 

Indeed, in a January 2000 article, published more than 

one year before the earliest application filing date, and 

thus qualifying as prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)

(2006),2 a DuPont consultant stated that “[d]igitally 

imaged plates will become the standard for high-quality 

flexo,” and that “Next on the horizon is Cyrel FAST, 

reportedly the first thermal, dry-processed flexo platemaker on the market. Regular or digitally imaged plates 

are processed without solvents or liquids.” J.A. 3427 

(emphases added). That article thus explicitly and unambiguously teaches combining digital and thermal technologies, thus laying to rest any doubt whether there would 

have been a reason to combine those technologies.

We are unpersuaded by DuPont’s arguments to the 

contrary. DuPont only relies on its expert’s declaration 

and identifies no prior art that disparages the claimed 

combination. DuPont argues that the thermal method 

produced poor quality images, and thus it had languished

 

2 This court and our predecessor court have held 

that art considered to be a statutory bar under § 102(b) 

qualifies as prior art under § 103(a). See, e.g., Dippin’ 

Dots, Inc. v. Mosey, 476 F.3d 1337, 1344 (Fed. Cir. 2007); 

LaBounty Mfg., Inc. v. ITC, 958 F.2d 1066, 1071 (Fed. Cir. 

1992); In re Kaslow, 707 F.2d 1366, 1374 (Fed. Cir. 1983); 

In re Ownby, 471 F.2d 1233, 1236 (CCPA 1973); In re 

Foster, 343 F.2d 980, 988–90 (CCPA 1965).

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18 E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 

for decades since the 1960s. But, as the record shows, in 

the 1990s, right before the 1999 date of invention, several 

prior art references, including Martens and DuPont’s own 

public disclosures, promoted the thermal process. Even if 

it were true that the thermal process was not the best 

method for producing high quality images, the legally 

proper question is whether the thermal process would be

a suitable option in some respects, not necessarily in every

respect. Here, the prior art teaches the benefits of thermal development over solvent development, including 

environmental and time-saving benefits. There is therefore no genuine issue of material fact that a person of 

ordinary skill would have had a reason to combine digital 

imaging and thermal development.

We also agree with MacDermid that a person of ordinary skill in the art would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining digital imaging and thermal 

development as claimed by the ’859 patent. As indicated, 

DuPont conceded that the prior art “digital” references 

teach steps 1(a) and 2 of the claimed method, and that the 

prior art “thermal” references teach the thermal removal 

of multiple layers. DuPont also admitted that its priorart digital-solvent plates have the same chemical composition as its digital-thermal plates. J.A. 3384–85, 3237. 

Although the prior art did not explicitly teach the thermal 

removal of the ablation layer in a digital plate, the record 

shows that prior art digital plates already included ablation layers with binders that softened and flowed at 

thermal development temperatures, and thus are in fact 

thermally removable. Accordingly, there would have been 

a reasonable expectation that the thermal process would 

successfully remove the ablation layer bound to the photopolymerizable layer. 

This is not a case where a skilled artisan needed “to 

vary all parameters or try each of numerous possible 

choices until one possibly arrived at a successful result, 

where the prior art gave either no indication of which 

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E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 19

parameters were critical or no direction as to which of 

many possible choices is likely to be successful.” In re 

O’Farrell, 853 F.2d 894, 903 (Fed. Cir. 1988). Nor is this

a case where a skilled artisan “was to explore a new 

technology or general approach that seemed to be a promising field of experimentation, where the prior art gave 

only general guidance as to the particular form of the 

claimed invention or how to achieve it.” Id. 

Notably, the claims at issue do not require any special 

condition for digital imaging or thermal development. 

With a reason to combine digital and thermal technologies, a skilled artisan needed only to begin from an existing digital plate, to imagewise expose it, and then to 

thermally develop the plate in known ways to practice the 

claimed process. Thus, the claimed process would at least 

have been obvious to try. There is therefore no genuine 

issue of material fact that a person of ordinary skill in the 

art would have had a reasonable expectation of success in 

combining digital and thermal techniques.

DuPont lastly contends that secondary considerations 

created a triable issue precluding summary judgment. 

Because this appeal arises from a grant of summary 

judgment, as with other issues, we review the objective 

evidence de novo, drawing all justifiable inferences in 

favor of DuPont. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). In district court 

litigation, courts must consider all objective evidence 

before reaching the ultimate conclusion of obviousness. In 

re Cyclobenzaprine Hydrochloride Extended-Release 

Patent Litig., 676 F.3d 1063, 1076 (Fed. Cir. 2012). “The 

objective considerations, when considered with the balance of the obviousness evidence in the record, guard as a 

check against hindsight bias.” Id. at 1079. The burden of 

persuasion remains on the patent challenger to prove 

obviousness. Id. at 1077–78.

DuPont argues that the district court failed to properly consider the objective evidence, including unexpected 

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20 E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 

results, copying, commercial success, long-felt but unmet 

need, and industry praise. On a careful review of the 

record, we agree with MacDermid that DuPont’s purported evidence of unexpected results, copying, and long-felt 

but unmet need is sparse. Moreover, drawing all justifiable inferences in favor of DuPont, we conclude that the 

proffered objective evidence, including commercial success 

and industry praise, is insufficient to create a genuine 

issue of material fact to preclude summary judgment. 

As discussed, the record contains strong evidence that 

a skilled artisan would have had a reason to combine two 

known technologies and would have had a reasonable 

expectation of success in doing so. Indeed, DuPont itself 

promoted the digital and thermal technologies as technological breakthroughs in prior art publications. Thus, in 

view of the record as a whole, even drawing all justifiable 

inferences in favor of DuPont, the objective evidence is 

insufficient to preclude summary judgment on the ultimate legal conclusion of obviousness. 

We therefore affirm the grant of summary judgment 

of invalidity of the ’859 patent. 

B 

We now turn to the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment of noninfringement of the ’758 patent. To 

determine infringement, a court first construes the scope 

and meaning of the asserted patent claims, and then 

compares the construed claims to the accused product or 

process. Absolute Software, Inc. v. Stealth Signal, Inc., 

659 F.3d 1121, 1129 (Fed. Cir. 2011). “The proper construction of a patent’s claims is an issue of Federal Circuit 

law.” Id. We review a district court’s ultimate claim 

construction de novo and any underlying factual determinations involving extrinsic evidence for clear error. Teva 

Pharm. U.S.A., Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 831, 841–

42 (2015). Here, because the district court relied solely on

the intrinsic record in construing the challenged claim 

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E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 21

term, and because the intrinsic record alone determines 

the proper construction, we review the district court’s 

construction de novo. See Shire Dev., LLC v. Watson 

Pharm., Inc., 787 F.3d 1359, 1364, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2015)

(citing Teva, 135 S. Ct. at 840–42). 

Infringement is a question of fact. Absolute Software, 

659 F.3d at 1129–30. “On appeal from a grant of summary judgment of non-infringement, we determine 

whether, after resolving reasonable factual inferences in 

favor of the patentee, the district court correctly concluded that no reasonable jury could find infringement.” Id.

1 

The words of a claim “are generally given their ordinary and customary meaning” as understood by a person 

of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention. 

Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312–13 (Fed. Cir. 

2005) (en banc). The court looks to the intrinsic record, 

including “the words of the claims themselves, the remainder of the specification, [and] the prosecution history,” as well as to extrinsic evidence when appropriate, to 

construe a disputed claim term. Id. at 1314. 

DuPont argues that the district court erred in construing “dimensionally stable” by importing a “special 

annealing” process limitation into a product claim and by 

imposing further requirements that the annealing process 

take place after the manufacturing of the polymeric film 

and be separate from the bonding process. DuPont argues 

that there was no disclaimer or disavowal during prosecution because it merely discussed the annealing process to 

show that the inherency rejection was improper. 

MacDermid responds that the district court did not 

impermissibly read process limitations into the product 

claims. MacDermid argues that the “special annealing 

process” is a necessary limitation because the patentee 

emphasized during prosecution that the “special annealCase: 15-1777 Document: 53-2 Page: 21 Filed: 08/19/2016
22 E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 

ing process” is essential to the claimed invention. MacDermid argues, moreover, that the specification makes 

clear that the annealing process is the invention, whereas 

the bonding process is optional and disclosed by the prior 

art.

We agree with MacDermid that the district court did 

not err in construing “dimensionally stable” as requiring a 

“special annealing process” that controls the dimensional 

stability of the polymeric substrate, as described in the 

patent specification. During prosecution, the applicants 

relied solely on that annealing process to overcome priorart-based anticipation and obviousness rejections and

repeatedly characterized the annealing process as “important” and “critical.” J.A. 2303, 2348, 2367. Those 

statements constitute a disclaimer of the claim scope.

We are unpersuaded by DuPont’s argument that its 

prosecution statements were made merely to show that 

the examiner failed to establish that the prior art plates, 

which were not annealed, inherently possess the claimed 

dimensional stability. As noted, the applicants sought to 

overcome both inherency and obviousness rejections, and 

it repeatedly emphasized that the annealing process is 

“important” and “critical.” The applicants did so to secure 

issuance, and succeeded. In view of the disclaimer in the 

publicly available intrinsic record, DuPont cannot now 

attempt to recapture the disclaimed subject matter.

We therefore conclude that the “dimensionally stable”

limitation requires that the polymeric substrate be prepared from the special annealing process that controls the 

dimensional stability of the substrate. We need not, and 

do not, address whether the district court erred in requiring that the annealing process be separate from the 

bonding process because, as indicated infra, our affirmance of the grant of summary judgment of noninfringement does not turn on that issue.

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E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 23

2 

DuPont next argues that, even under the district 

court’s construction, the court erred in granting summary 

judgment of noninfringement because it resolved factual 

disputes in favor of MacDermid as to whether the accused 

process, namely, Kimoto’s adhesive drying process, is a 

“special annealing process.” MacDermid responds that it 

was entitled to summary judgment because DuPont relied 

solely on one sentence in its expert report, stating that 

the Kimoto process is not a bonding process, to establish 

that the Kimoto process is an annealing process. MacDermid notes that DuPont’s expert later conceded that 

the Kimoto process is for bonding, not other purposes. 

MacDermid additionally argues that the record supports alternative grounds for affirming the grant of summary judgment of noninfringement, including DuPont’s 

failure to establish that the dimensional stability of the 

accused substrate is “controlled” by a “special annealing 

process.” DuPont responds that MacDermid’s alleged 

alternative grounds involve disputed issues of fact, not 

law, and thus must be decided by a jury on remand. 

We agree with MacDermid and affirm the grant of 

summary judgment of noninfringement on the alternative 

ground that DuPont failed to establish that the dimensional stability of the accused substrate is controlled by 

the accused Kimoto adhesive drying process. 

In the district court, MacDermid presented evidence 

that the dimensional stability of the accused substrate 

was not improved by Kimoto’s adhesive drying process. 

DuPont did not put forth any contrary evidence on this 

issue. In opposition to MacDermid’s motion for summary 

judgment, DuPont filed an expert declaration attempting 

to provide, for the first time, an analysis and opinion that 

the Kimoto process controlled dimensional stability. J.A. 

7275–79. The district court struck DuPont’s newly disclosed evidence, J.A. 13283–94, and DuPont does not 

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24 E.I. DU PONT DE NEMOURS v. MACDERMID PRINTING SOLS. 

challenge that evidentiary ruling on appeal. Thus, without evidence that the Kimoto process controls the dimensional stability of the accused substrate, no reasonable 

jury could find that MacDermid infringes the asserted 

claims.

We therefore affirm the grant of summary judgment 

of noninfringement of the ’758 patent. 

CONCLUSION

We have considered DuPont’s remaining arguments 

and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, 

we conclude that the asserted claims of the ’859 patent 

would have been obvious in view of the prior art and that 

the asserted claims of the ’758 patent were not infringed. 

We therefore affirm the judgment of the district court.

AFFIRMED

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