Source: https://patentlyo.com/patent/2009/03/improper-summary-judgment-on-doctrine-of-equivalents-marking-products-that-perform-method-claims.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 06:38:49+00:00

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Your great Professor Couch, very talented. Two hands down.
Morgana,you’re being too charitable. I’d expect a 102 rejection with a statement like “the reference teaches a reinforcing bead (fold)” or, if that’s giving the applicant too much of a clue, perhaps something more opaque like “See FIG. 2.” Good luck arguing a fold is not a bead unless “bead” is expressly defined in the spec to exclude a fold because everyone knows that if a bead and a fold both can be used to reinforce a can then a fold IS a bead.
Thank you Bob Matthews for explaining in detail, with cites, why this Crown Packaging v. Rexam Beverage decision is so surprisingly inconsistent with what others, including numerous judges, thought the law was.
In American Medical Sys. v. Medical Eng’g Corp., 6 F.3d 1523, 1538-39 (Fed. Cir. 1993), the court state that “to the extent that there is a tangible item to mark by which notice of the asserted method claims can be given, a party is obliged to do so.” I find the court’s decision in Crown regarding marking and method claims troubling. It implictly overrules what appears to have been well accepted in the district courts that, in view of Am. Med., only asserting method claims would not save a patentee who failed to mark a product that was made by the claimed process or used to practice the claimed process. E.g., Osteotech, Inc. v. Regeneration Technologies, Inc., 2008 WL 4449564, *6 (D.N.J. Sept. 25, 2008); Merck & Co., Inc. v. MediPlan Health Consulting, Inc., 434 F. Supp. 2d 257, 261-62 (S.D.N.Y. June 14, 2006); Halliburton Serv. v. Smith Intern. Inc. 317 F. Supp. 2d 719 725-26 (E.D. Tex. 2004); Philips Elecs. N. Am. Corp. v. Contec Corp., 312 F. Supp. 2d 649, 651-52 (D. Del. 2004); Mosel Vitelic Corp. v. Micron Technology, Inc., 2000 WL 1728351 *2 (D. Del. Feb. 25, 2000); see also Soverain Software LLC. v. Amazon.com, Inc., 383 F. Supp. 2d 904, 909 (E.D. Tex. 2005) (failure to mark website preclude damages even if only method claims were asserted).
Since the patentee in Devices for Medicine had asserted both its apparatus and method claims, the Crown panel would have likely applied the same distinction. But that distinction fails to address a point made in Devices for Medicine where the court stated: “The claimed method is the use of the product. Having sold the product unmarked, DFM could hardly maintain entitlement to damages for its use by a purchaser uninformed that such use would violate DFM’s method patent.” 822 F.2d at 1066.
While the distinction drawn by Crown court regarding Hanson and American Medical (and equally applicable to Devices for Medicine) is technically accurate, at least procedurally, its seems to me to be substantively unsatisfying. One distinction that may possible have more merit lies in the differences between the claimed process in American Medical and Devices for Medicine and that in Hanson. In American Medical, the court noted that the patentee’s product was a “physical device produced by the claimed method.” In Devices for Medicine, the claimed process was the intended use of the claimed apparatus. In both of these cases, infringement of the process claim depended on the presence of the apparatus. In Hanson, the claimed process concerned a method of making snow. While the sold apparatus, which was allegedly covered by the apparatus claim, could be used to practice the process of making snow, the apparatus was not the outcome of the process, nor was the presence of the apparatus crucial for practicing the claimed process. The snow could be made by means wholly independent of the apparatus, and the process claims did not recite the use of the apparatus as an element of any of the claims. Thus, the claimed process in Hanson was independent of the claimed apparatus. This suggests that where a process can only be infringed by the use or creation of an article sold by the patentee or its licensee, then that article should be marked with the process patent number. If the process can be performed without the patentee’s article, the law might not require marking. Although this seems contrary to the policy stated in American Medical –– “to the extent that there is a tangible item to mark by which notice of the asserted method claims can be given, a party is obliged to do so.” Am. Med., supra.
The facts recited by the court in Crown note that the unmarked patented necking machine could be used in ways that did not practice the claimed processes, (bringing this close to the Hanson facts of being able to practice the snow making process without using the claimed apparatus). But the facts recited in Crown are silent as to whether the claimed processes could be practiced in ways that did not require the use of the patented necking machine. If not, and if “the claimed method is the use of the product,” then perhaps the failure to mark the necking machines should have precluded damages under Devices for Medicine. The opinion did not address this point, and hence we are left to wonder.
Since the court seems to have a lot on its plate now with the pending 271(f) en banc case, Judge Linn’s call yesterday for an en banc hearing on inequitable conduct, this issue of marking and method claims could get overlooked. But it too seems ripe for greater consideration.
Reply to Stuart: If your question is directed to “equivalents” for doctrine of equivalents, the law is well settled that DOE is determined as of the date of infringement and hence later developed equivalents may fall within DOE.
Insofar as the question under the doctrine of equivalents is whether an accused element is equivalent to a claimed element, the proper time for evaluating equivalency—and thus knowledge of interchangeability between elements—is at the time of infringement, not at the time the patent was issued. And rejecting the milder version of petitioner’s argument necessarily rejects the more severe proposition that equivalents must not only be known, but must also be actually disclosed in the patent in order for such equivalents to infringe upon the patent.
520 US at 37, 117 S. Ct. at 1052-53, 41 USPQ2d at 1874.
I have a more detailed discussion of this issue and additional case authority in the Annotated Patent Digest at § 13:54	Future Non-contemplated Equivalents are Protected.
WTF. If this were in an Office Action, the Examiner merely would say something like “reinforcing fold” do what “annular reinforcing bead” does therefore it is obvious, routine experimentation, to chose between generally known choises that results in the a reinforcing outcome. Then, they also would find a patent having a fold on the side of a can (most do) and say it’s a “reinforcing” fold and that is is obvious to apply that fold where ever the inventor’s patent application says to apply it. The examiner would then hold both positions through final office action to force a $3,000+ appeal, hoping that the inventor can’t afford it and gives up. That’s how things are handled below the BPAI, but, of course, it is the evil inventors that are not legitimately participating in the patent process so we need to change the law to beat them back onto the farm.
Does this decision–or any other known to folks posting here–hold that an “equivalent” may be a a method, appratus, etc. developed AFTER the FD or issue date of the patent in suit?
I also think this allleged distinction here of the prior controlling CAFC American Medical Systems decision is a logical stretch. After all, the subject patent here also had both apparatus [or product] and method claims, and it is the PATTENT that the marking statute says it wants marking warnings to the public about when the patented product is sold to the public. Was the marking statute intended to be controllable merely by the patent owner’s attorney picking and chosing which claims to sue on?
Now, after this case, what about just dropping some claims in pending suits to change the outcome?
Funny, Mooney never gets banned.
WARNING IF YOU MAKE TOO MANY FLAME POSTS YOU MIGHT GET BANNED/BALETED IF YOU KEEP MAKING THEM. THIS IS TRUE ON ALMOST ALL FORUMS.
You know what would be funny though, is if he’s just having trouble posting like I was there for awhile. Actually I still do have trouble if I don’t sign in to the typepad name “6” instead of just trying to post normally. It will say that your post was posted by | and then it won’t post, sometimes it just won’t post, and sometimes it will post. Just fyi flamo, you can fix this by making a typepad account and using it. Also, even if you have a typepad account and use it, if your post gets caught by the spamfilter it will simply not post it instead of warning you.
And who knows trolls better than you Pr0fessor Mooney?
This troll has been melting down for six months. That has to be a record.
Why should the requirement to mark – which is a pre-infringement, pre-suit requirement – depend on whether or not apparatus claims are asserted at trial? It should be a single rule for method claims, irrespective of whether or not I also assert appartus claims: to assert apparatus claims, there must have been marking; to assert method claims, there need not have been marking. If I didn’t mark and I assert both apparatus and method claims, I lose on the apparatus claims, but the method claims should still be good to go.
If we’re going to say that method claims don’t need marking, then there’s no reason the viability of my method claims should depend upon the co-assertion of apparatus claims, and the marking of my apparatus, in the same suit.
Sounds like the CAFC (yet again) needs to get its house in order.
WARNING: if the puppet master doesn’t like your post, e.g. if it is dissenting or critical of Mooney, et al. it will be deleted either immediately or after it gets pushed down by new content.
With regard to the marking in method claims, does this also extend to a claim reciting a method of using a widget, where the structural elements of the widget are recited in the preamble? Clearly there is a product in such a case. Thoughts?
Wow, Professor Crouch – you are soo smart!, would you consider representing Just ordinary inventors?

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