Opinion ID: 211528
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “Diaphragm disposed in the body”

Text: On appeal, Cannon argues that the district court’s decision was based on an erroneous construction of the claim limitation “diaphragm disposed in the body.” According to Cannon, by requiring the diaphragm to be “disposed or mounted entirely within the body of the pump,” the court did not give the contested limitation its ordinary meaning. Cannon contends that under the ordinary meaning of the phrase “in the body,” the entire diaphragm does not need to be “in the body,” and thus the court imported the term “entirely” from the specification to unduly narrow the scope of the claims. Cannon also argues that the patentee did not act as its own lexicographer to specially define the phrase “in the body,” or clearly disavow coverage of breast pumps 05-1063 6 with diaphragms that are partially in the body from the claims. Instead, Cannon directs us to the patent’s “Summary of the Invention,” which it contends describes the diaphragm of the patent’s second embodiment as being “in the body” (neither party questions the district court’s determination that a portion of the diaphragm of the second embodiment is located outside of the body of the pump). TFY disputes Cannon’s charge that the district court improperly failed to apply the ordinary meaning in construing the claim limitation “diaphragm disposed in the body.” TFY basically repeats the analysis contained in the court’s Markman decision, which noted that the ’850 patent specification uses the phrase “in the body” to describe an entirely-contained diaphragm and uses the phrase “mounted thereon” to describe a partially-contained diaphragm. TFY also asserts that the prosecution history supports the court’s claim construction. According to TFY, in response to a § 112 rejection, the patentee amended the language of the original claims from “mounting a [] diaphragm” to “diaphragm disposed in the body.” Presumably viewing the term “mounting” to encompass only a partially-contained diaphragm, TFY argues that Cannon should not be allowed to recapture previously surrendered subject matter. TFY also downplays Cannon’s reliance on a statement in the “Summary of the Invention” as being too ambiguous to overcome the clear distinction in the way the specification describes entirely- versus partially-contained diaphragms in the body. We agree with Cannon that the district court improperly added the limitation “entirely” in its interpretation of the claim limitation “diaphragm disposed in the body.” As an initial matter, we note that the term “in” is a simple, non-technical term, and that under its ordinary meaning, a “diaphragm disposed in the body” includes both 05-1063 7 diaphragms contained entirely and partially in the body. See Brown v. 3M, 265 F.3d 1349, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (recognizing that claim terms may not be technical terms of art, and do not require elaborate interpretation). For example, a trash bag is “in” a trashcan even though a portion of it is hanging outside of the trashcan. Moving on from the question of plain meaning, we next address whether there is any justification for deviating from it. As discussed in Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1316-17 (Fed. Cir. 2005), we may depart from the plain meaning of a claim term when the patentee has acted as a lexicographer or when the patentee has clearly limited the scope of the invention through a disclaimer in the specification or prosecution history. We conclude that neither situation occurred here. As the district court recognized, the patent uses the phrase “in the body” in one instance to describe a diaphragm that is contained entirely within the body of the pump, and the phrase “mounted thereon” in another instance to describe a diaphragm that is contained partially within the body of the pump. These two cited instances, however, do not clearly indicate that the patentee intended to assign a more narrow definition to the phrase “in the body” than it would otherwise possess. See, e.g., Elekta Instrument S.A. v. O.U.R. Scientific Int’l, 214 F.3d 1302, 1307 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (for a patentee to act as its own lexicographer defining a claim term differently from its ordinary meaning, the specification must clearly indicate the patentee’s intent to do so). Although the phrase “mounted thereon,” which indicates that at least a portion of the diaphragm is on the outer surface of the body of the pump, may have a somewhat different meaning than the phrase “diaphragm disposed in the body,” the two phrases are not mutually exclusive, viz., a diaphragm “mounted thereon” the body can also be a “diaphragm 05-1063 8 disposed in the body,” as the second embodiment of the specification shows. Thus, the specification uses different words to highlight the different ways that a diaphragm may be placed in the body of the pump. Moreover, contrary to TFY’s position, the specification unambiguously uses the phrase “in the body” in the “Summary of the Invention” section to refer to diaphragms that are contained both entirely and partially in the body of the pump. ’850 patent, col. 2, ll. 16-24. And the fact that the specification contains figures of embodiments that are both entirely and partially in the body is a strong indication that the claims were intended to encompass both. Our review of the prosecution history also does not clearly indicate that the patentee intended to disclaim coverage in the claims for diaphragms that are not contained entirely within the body of the pump. See Omega Eng’g v. Raytek Corp., 334 F.3d 1314, 1325-26 (Fed. Cir. 2003) (requiring a disclaimer of subject matter in the prosecution history to be “clear and unmistakable”). Although the patentee amended the claims, which originally recited “mounting a [] diaphragm,” to a “diaphragm disposed in the body” in response to a § 112 indefiniteness rejection, that was not a clear disavowal of subject matter that was not completely in the body. In his correspondence, the patent examiner did not reject the originally-filed claims on the grounds that the claims containing the limitation “mounting a [] diaphragm” read on the prior art or was unsupported by the specification as filed. Rather, the examiner took issue with the apparatus claims being “narrative in form and replete with indefinite and functional or operational language.” In making the amendment, the patentee merely replaced “operational” language, i.e., “mounting a [] diaphragm,” with definite structural language, i.e., a “diaphragm disposed in the body.” We are thus hard-pressed to conclude that 05-1063 9 there has been a surrender of subject matter when the patentee has merely amended the claims to replace an original phrase with a different, but not narrower, amended phrase. At a minimum, this was not a “clear and unmistakable” disclaimer.