Opinion ID: 783283
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mate

Text: 49 The claims of the '363 patent family require that the protrusion be configured to mate with an inset of one or more adjacently positioned blocks. See, e.g., '183 patent, col. 16, ll. 20-33 (emphasis added). The district court construed mate to require the following three limitations: (1) a close confinement of the protrusion within the inset(s) of one or more blocks; (2) an ability to secure the blocks in place in a forwards and backwards direction; and (3) an interlocking of the protrusion with the insets. Anchor, 252 F.Supp.2d. at 844-45. Anchor does not dispute the district court's third limitation that mate is interchangeable with interlock in the patent specification. However, we hold that the first and second limitations of the district court's construction of mate are erroneous. 50 The ordinary meaning of mate, as the district court found, is to join or fit together. Id. at 845 (citing Merriam-Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary 716). Contrary to the district court's narrow construction, the written description does not define mate as requiring a close confinement of the protrusion within the inset(s) of one or more blocks. Id. at 844. In describing one preferred design, the written description only states that the area of the inset should be — not must be — approximately the same area as, or only slightly larger than, protrusion 26 with which it will mate. '363 patent, col. 4, ll. 37-40. The written description makes quite clear that the open-ended examples of mating are merely illustrative; that is, they do not exhaustively delineate the scope of the term mate whose ordinary meaning is clear from the claims. Id. at col. 4, ll. 35-38 (The area of the insets adjacent the block to surface 10 is preferably larger than the protrusion 26 by a factor of 5% or more and preferably about 1% to 2% or more.  (emphases added)). Moreover, the general rule, of course, is that claims of a patent are not limited to the preferred embodiment, unless by their own language. See, e.g., Va. Panel, 133 F.3d at 866. That the term mate is used in a nonlimiting way in the written description with respect to preferred degrees of confinement is simply not a special and particular definition created by the patent applicant, Renishaw, 158 F.3d at 1249, and is thus an insufficient reason to limit the scope of mate to require close confinement. 51 Furthermore, the prosecution history does not attribute a special meaning to the term mate as requiring an ability to secure the blocks in place in a forwards and backwards direction. Anchor, 252 F.Supp.2d at 844-46. During prosecution of the common parent application of the '363 patent family, the applicant distinguished features of its invention over prior art by admitting that the insets (1) extend into side surfaces of the blocks and (2) are for mating with a protrusion from a second, similarly configured block. The applicant also argued during prosecution that the prior art references require some form of additional engagement structure (i.e., pins in Forsberg, and mortar in Italy 709,599) to secure each of the blocks in place (emphasis in original). As these statements show, the patentee did not clearly and unmistakably relinquish any claim to a block in which the mating does not include the district court's functional limitation of restricting the movement of the block in a forwards and backwards direction. Omega, 334 F.3d at 1325-26 ([F]or prosecution disclaimer to attach, our precedent requires that the alleged disavowing actions or statements made during prosecution be both clear and unmistakable.). Rather, the applicant's statements distinguish the prior art primarily in structural terms by emphasizing that the invention of the '363 patent family does not require an additional engagement structure such as pins or mortar to secure the blocks in place. We therefore do not consider the applicant's remarks to be a clear and unmistakable disavowal of claim scope as required to depart from the ordinary meaning of the term provided by the specification and therefore hold that the proper construction of mate is to join or fit together.