Opinion ID: 209348
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendants' Motion for JMOL of Obviousness

Text: The denial of a motion for JMOL is reviewed under the law of the regional circuit where the appeal from the district court normally would lie. z4 Techs., Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 507 F.3d 1340, 1346 (Fed. Cir.2007) (quotations omitted). In the Fifth Circuit, JMOL is appropriate only when a `reasonable jury would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis to find for the party on that issue.' Cambridge Toxicology Group, Inc. v. Exnicios, 495 F.3d 169, 179 (5th Cir.2007) (quoting Fed. R.Civ.P. 50(a)(1)). We must affirm unless there is no legally sufficient evidentiary basis for the jury's verdict. Lane v. R.A. Sims, Jr., Inc., 241 F.3d 439, 445 (5th Cir.2001) (internal quotations omitted). Defendants allege several errors in the district court's treatment of its obviousness contentions. First, Defendants argue that the court's failure to construe wound prevented the jury from properly assessing whether the prior art was within the scope of the asserted claims. Second, Defendants argue that the district court erred by finding that substantial evidence supported the jury's finding that the patents were not obvious. Finally, Defendants contend that the district court was required to conduct its own independent obviousness analysis and erred by simply reviewing the jury's verdict for substantial evidence. We address each argument in turn.
Defendants argue that the district court erred by vacating its construction of wound when the term's meaning was critical to the obviousness inquiry. According to Defendants, this error allowed KCI to improperly avoid the prior art by arguing claim construction to the jury. Specifically, Defendants take issue with KCI's characterization at trial of the Chariker-Jeter, Svedman, Johnson, and Davydov references as draining fistulae, irrigating wounds, immobilizing skin grafts, and draining bodily fluids, respectively, as opposed to treating wounds with negative pressure. Defendants' expert testified that under the plain and ordinary meaning of wound, each of the prior art references disclosed treating a wound with negative pressure. The effect of this, according to Defendants, was that the jury was improperly forced to choose between competing claim constructions offered by the experts. Defendants ask us to adopt their proposed plain and ordinary meaning construction, taken from Stedman's Medical Dictionary: (1) trauma to any of the tissues of the body, especially that caused by physical means and with interruption of continuity [or] (2) a surgical incision. They argue that the specification's use of broad language when describing the wounds that can be treated shows that the ordinary meaning, as defined in the dictionary, was intended. See '643 patent col.12 ll.41-42 (Negative pressure appliances are useful for treating a variety of wounds.); id. col.13 ll.24-25 (The present invention also includes a method of treating damaged tissue....). Additionally, Defendants cite the numerous examples in the '643 patent's specification that describe open wounds, infected wounds, burn wounds, skin graft and skin flap wounds, decubitus ulcer wounds, incisional wounds, chronic open wounds secondary to stasis ulcers, and wounds which respond to increased blood flow, to support their proposed construction. KCI responds that any error resulting from the district court's failure to construe the wound phrases is harmless because Defendants' proposed construction is incorrect as a matter of law and the jury's verdict demonstrates that it adopted the correct construction. According to KCI, the correct construction of wound is tissue damage to the surface of the body, including the epithelial and subcutaneous layers. KCI argues that while the specification may refer to a variety of wounds, each and every example specifically described is a skin wound. Therefore, KCI alleges, the Stedman's Medical Dictionary definition is broader than the scope of the specification and cannot be used to define wound as used in the claims. Further, KCI notes that under Defendants' proposed construction, wound would include, in addition to fistulae, conditions such as ruptured appendices and stomach ulcers that the specification in no way suggests can be treated according to the claimed invention. Appellee's Br. 53. As a threshold matter, it appears that the parties' dispute over the construction of wound only affects the Chariker-Jeter and Davydov references. At trial, KCI did not contest that wounds were the subject of both the Svedman and Johnson articles. For example, KCI's expert, Dr. Orgill, testified that, in the Johnson reference, [t]he skin graft is closing the wound. J.A. 204,899. Similarly, Dr. Orgill described the Svedman article as teaching irrigation of a wound. J.A. 204,923. Therefore, the effect of any error in the failure to construe wound is limited to the Chariker-Jeter and Davydov references. [3] We agree with KCI that wound, as used in the asserted patents, does not cover the fistulae described in the Chariker-Jeter publications and the pus pockets described in the Davydov references. As this court held in Phillips v. AWH Corp ., the specification `is always highly relevant to the claim construction analysis. Usually, it is dispositive; it is the single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term.' 415 F.3d 1303, 1315 (Fed.Cir.2005) (en banc) (quoting Vitronics Corp. v. Conceptronic, Inc., 90 F.3d 1576, 1582 (Fed. Cir.1996)). All of the examples described in the specification involve skin wounds. See id. at 1321 (Properly viewed, the `ordinary meaning' of a claim term is its meaning to the ordinary artisan after reading the entire patent.). To construe wound to include fistulae and pus pockets would thus expand the scope of the claims far beyond anything described in the specification. See Nystrom v. TREX Co., 424 F.3d 1136, 1145 (Fed.Cir.2005) ([I]n the absence of something in the written description and/or prosecution history to provide explicit or implicit notice to the publici.e., those of ordinary skill in the artthat the inventor intended a disputed term to cover more than the ordinary and customary meaning revealed by the context of the intrinsic record, it is improper to read the term to encompass a broader definition simply because it may be found in a dictionary, treatise, or other extrinsic source.). We further conclude that the district court's failure to instruct the jury on the construction of wound in this case was harmless. [4] See B. Braun Med., Inc. v. Abbott Labs., 124 F.3d 1419, 1423 (Fed.Cir. 1997) (holding that the district court's pre- Markman failure to instruct the jury on the construction of a means-plus-function limitation was harmless because the jury adopted the correct construction). Because the jury's verdict is supported under the proper construction, and because we perceive no danger under the circumstances of this case that the jury may have used an incorrect construction of wound that might have prejudiced Defendants, there is no need to remand for a new trial.
Defendants next argue that regardless of which claim construction is used, the prior art references disclose treating wounds with negative pressure. In support of this, Defendants cite the Chariker-Jeter publications that describe treatment of wounds complicated by fistulae, Dr. Chariker's testimony about the use of that method on a wound that did not include a fistula, the Svedman article, the Johnson article, and the Davydov articles. The scope and content of the prior art are factual questions to be determined by the jury. Graham v. John Deere Co. of Kan. City, 383 U.S. 1, 17, 86 S.Ct. 684, 15 L.Ed.2d 545 (1966). This court reviews these factual determinations, whether explicit or implicit within the verdict, for substantial evidence. LNP Eng'g Plastics, Inc. v. Miller Waste Mills, Inc., 275 F.3d 1347, 1353 (Fed.Cir.2001). Defendants primarily rely on the Chariker-Jeter references, including the publications and Dr. Chariker's testimony at trial. However, KCI distinguished these references in front of the jury and presented substantial evidence that these references did not disclose treating wounds with negative pressure. For example, Dr. Argenta, a witness for KCI and one of the named inventors on the asserted patents, testified that the Chariker-Jeter system is totally different from the claimed invention. Specifically, Dr. Argenta stated that the Chariker-Jeter method was designed for draining the effluent from fistulae, not treating a wound in order to increase granulation. Additionally, KCI's expert, Dr. Orgill, testified that the Chariker-Jeter references deal[] with draining fistulas only, no[t] healing of the wound. With respect to Dr. Chariker's testimony about the use of the method on a patient whose wound did not include a fistula, KCI purports to have impeached Dr. Chariker's testimony about this patient with contradictory deposition testimony. The jury was correctly instructed, however, that it was the sole judge[] of credibility and that it must decide which witnesses to believe. Moreover, Fifth Circuit law dictates that in case[s] of conflicting expert testimony, the jury is entitled to make credibility determinations and believe the witness it considers more trustworthy. Streber v. Hunter, 221 F.3d 701, 726 (5th Cir.2000) (quotations omitted). Based on our review of the record, we find that the testimony of KCI's witnesses was sufficient to allow the jury to reach the conclusion that the Chariker-Jeter method was not used to treat a wound with negative pressure as required by the claims. We reach the same conclusion regarding the Svedman, Johnson, and Davydov articles. Dr. Orgill distinguished the Svedman technique on two grounds. First, Dr. Orgill told the jury that Svedman taught an irrigation device, not a device for treating a wound with negative pressure. Second, Dr. Orgill explained that the Svedman technique could not maintain negative pressure on the wound because the Vaseline between the dressing and the wound would become viscous when warmed by contact with human skin. With respect to the Johnson article, Dr. Orgill told the jury that the skin graft, not the negative pressure, was treating the wound. According to Dr. Orgill, the Johnson article simply described one of many ways to immobilize a skin graft to a wound. Finally, Dr. Orgill testified that Davydov did not teach treatment of a wound with negative pressure. Rather, Dr. Orgill explained, the Davydov method was used to treat a pocket of pus that was enclosed within the breast. According to Dr. Orgill, the only wound disclosed in the Davydov articles was the incision made to gain access to the pocket of pus, which did not begin to heal until the suction device was removed. Thus, KCI addressed each of Defendants' prior art references and provided the jury with a basis for determining that they did not teach or suggest treating a wound with negative pressure, a limitation found in every asserted claim. We conclude that this was sufficient to support the jury's verdict of nonobviousness. [5]
Defendants' final argument with respect to its JMOL motion is that the district court erred by failing to conduct its own obviousness analysis. Defendants do not argue that submitting the question of obviousness to the jury is error. However, they assert that the district court strayed by treat[ing] the obviousness conclusion as a pure factual question and simply reviewing the jury's verdict for substantial evidence. Appellant's Br. 54. Because of this, Defendants argue, the district court never considered which Graham factors justified a nonobviousness verdict. Defendants allege that had such an analysis occurred, the district court would have concluded that the asserted patents were obvious. Defendants' obviousness argument at trial relied heavily on the prior art references, the scope and content of which are factual questions to be determined by the jury. See Graham, 383 U.S. at 17, 86 S.Ct. 684. As discussed above, KCI presented substantial evidence to support its interpretation of the references. Thus, we must assume that the jury found that the prior art does not disclose treating a wound with negative pressure within the meaning of the patents. See Arsement v. Spinnaker Exploration Co., 400 F.3d 238, 249 (5th Cir.2005) (on appeal of a motion for JMOL, the evidence, as well as all reasonable inferences from it, are viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict (quotations omitted)). In light of this, we conclude that Defendants failed to establish that the asserted claims were obvious as a matter of law.