Opinion ID: 1405856
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Abbott's Arguments

Text: Abbott asserts that the district court erred in finding that the statements it made to the EPO were inconsistent with the PTO statements. It contends that in the EPO, the focus was on distinguishing the semipermeable membrane of the D1 reference from the protective, permeable membrane of the '636 patent. Abbott is correct that such a distinction was made in the EPO submissions. However, that is not the only point Abbott made in the EPO to distinguish the two references. The district court correctly found that Abbott also argued before the EPO that the protective membrane of the '636 patent was optional. The optional nature of the membrane was not irrelevant to the distinction of the D1 reference's semipermeable membrane because the optional nature of the membrane proved that it was not the type of membrane required by the D1 reference, as Abbott appears to recognize. [9] Abbott's representation was particularly clear in the May 1995 submission. In labeling the [o]ptionally, but preferably language unequivocally clear, Abbott emphasized the alleged plain meaning of the language in the specification quoted in the immediately preceding sentence and reinforced that meaning in the following sentence, where it stated, The protective membrane is optional, however, it is preferred when used on live blood in order to prevent the larger constituents of the blood, in particular erythrocytes from interfering with the electrode sensor. J.A. 6585. This sentence clearly was not directed to permeability. There can be no doubt that Abbott was making two assertions in this submission. It first explained that the protective membrane is optional but preferred when used on live blood and that the '382 patent language was unequivocally clear on this point. Then, using the transition furthermore, it expressed its second point about the permeability of the membrane. The dissent suggests a somewhat different theory to explain Abbott's representations to the PTOa theory that significantly was not addressed by Abbott itself. Abbott's theory is that the unequivocally clear statement of the second EPO submission was directed to the permeability of the membrane to water and glucose. As discussed above, this theory ignores the context of the unequivocally clear statement and particularly the sentence immediately following the unequivocally clear statement, which says nothing about permeability. The dissent attempts to fill this gaping hole in Abbott's argument by suggesting that it would be reasonable to interpret the sentence following the unequivocally clear statement as also directed to how the membrane functioned, i.e., that it was unequivocally clear that it protected against fouling, rather than that it was unequivocally clear that it was optional. With respect, Abbott's EPO statements cannot possibly be read in this manner. The unequivocally clear statement is tied directly to the optional nature of the membrane when used with whole blood and other fluids. The three sentences in question read: Optionally, but preferably when being used on live blood, a protective membrane surrounds both the enzyme and the mediator layers, permeable to water and glucose molecules. It is submitted that this disclosure is unequivocally clear. The protective membrane is optional, however, it is preferred when used on live blood in order to prevent the larger constituents of the blood, in particular erythrocytes from interfering with the electrode sensor. J.A. 6585. On its face, the description of the membrane's protective function was itself designed to establish why the membrane was optional with whole blood and other fluids, but preferred with live blood. It was preferred with live blood because it protected against fouling. Both with respect to whole blood and live blood, it was unequivocally clear that the membrane was optional (whole blood and other fluids) or preferred (live blood). Necessarily, it was unequivocally clear that the membrane was not required for either whole blood or live blood. Thus, this is not a situation such as that referred to in Scanner Technologies Corp. v. ICOS Vision Systems Corp . in which multiple reasonable inferences as to the meaning of representations could be drawn from the evidence and there existed an equally reasonable inference favorable to Abbott. See 528 F.3d 1365, 1376 (Fed.Cir.2008). Indeed, Abbott in oral argument agreed that the EPO statements were a recharacterization of the sentence that was already before the [PTO] examiner. Oral Argument at 40:40. Pope in his testimony agreed that the plain English reading of what Abbott told the EPO was contrary to what Abbott told the PTO. [10] To deprive an examiner of the EPO statementsstatements directly contrary to Abbott's representations to the PTOon the grounds that they were not material would be to eviscerate the duty of disclosure. Moreover, if this could be regarded as a close case, which it is not, we have repeatedly emphasized that the duty of disclosure requires that the material in question be submitted to the examiner rather than withheld by the applicant. See LNP Eng'g Plastics, Inc. v. Miller Waste Mills, Inc., 275 F.3d 1347, 1361 (Fed.Cir. 2001) ([W]hen a question of materiality is close, a patent applicant should err on the side of disclosure.); LaBounty Mfg., Inc. v. U.S. Int'l Trade Comm'n, 958 F.2d 1066, 1076 (Fed.Cir.1992) ([A close case] makes it all the more necessary that the [reference] should [be] disclosed to the examiner. Close cases should be resolved by disclosure, not unilaterally by the applicant.). Abbott nonetheless contends that lawyer argument about prior art is not information material to patentability and that since both the EPO and the PTO representations were merely argument, any inconsistency between the two could not be material. This court has held that representations made to the PTO concerning the content of prior art amount[ ] to mere attorney argument and our precedent has made clear that an applicant is free to advocate its interpretation of its claims and the teachings of the prior art. Innogenetics, 512 F.3d at 1379. However, all of the cases Abbott cites involve patentees who simply made representations to the PTO about prior art in order to secure the allowance of their patents. See id.; Young v. Lumenis, Inc., 492 F.3d 1336, 1344 (Fed.Cir.2007); Life Techs., Inc. v. Clontech Labs., Inc., 224 F.3d 1320, 1326 (Fed.Cir.2000); Akzo N.V. v. U.S. Int'l Trade Comm'n, 808 F.2d 1471, 1485 (Fed. Cir.1986). None of these cases involved a situation in which contradictory arguments made in another forum were withheld from the PTO. They do not speak to the applicant's obligation to advise the PTO of contrary representations made in another forum. Before the EPO, Abbott made statements that contradicted the representations Abbott made to the PTO regarding the '382 patent. An applicant's earlier statements about prior art, especially one's own prior art, are material to the PTO when those statements directly contradict the applicant's position regarding that prior art in the PTO. See 37 C.F.R. § 1.56(b)(2). In any event, the representations to the PTO were not merely lawyer argument; they were factual assertions as to the views of those skilled in the art, provided in affidavit form. The district court's finding that the EPO statements were highly material because they contradicted the position taken before the PTO was not clearly erroneous and was strongly supported by the uncontradicted record.