Opinion ID: 3066251
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: “Two insulated chambers”

Text: In its original claim construction order, the district court construed “two insulated chambers” as “two different chambers that are insulated from each other.” Construction Op. at . The district court elaborated on this construction in its summary judgment order, explaining 6 SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA v. BLUE RIDGE X-RAY COMPANY that this meant the two chambers could not “open directly into one another,” could not have “oil [that] is able to flow freely throughout the entire housing,” and required a “physical barrier between portions of the two regions.” Merits Op., 47 F. Supp. 3d at 387. SEDECAL argues that that the district court erred in construing the claims to require more than electrical insulation. According to SEDECAL, both intrinsic and extrinsic evidence shows that the word “insulated” means electrically insulated. Blue Ridge, for its part, argues that both the word “insulated” and the word “chambers” imply physical isolation. According to Blue Ridge, this construction is supported by the specification and the prosecution history. The claims of the ’829 patent are no model of clarity. The very fact that both parties suggest defining the term “two insulated chambers” by adding words—SEDECAL suggesting that it should be construed to be “two electrically insulated chambers” and Blue Ridge suggesting “two isolated and insulated chambers”—reflects the fact that clearer drafting would have been helpful. Construction Op. at . As a result, the district court struggled with how to properly construe the claims. While we do not fault the district court’s efforts to make sense of the patent language, we conclude on the basis of all the evidence that the district court erred in its constructions. On the record before us, the claim term “two insulated chambers” simply refers to electrically insulated chambers. The Background of the Invention explains that the difficulty with prior art transformers was in “achieving the electrical insulation between the various elements.” ’829 patent col.1 ll.16–17; see id. at col.1 ll.29–42. The Description of the Invention explains that one benefit of the invention is reducing “the number of . . . electrical insulation parts.” Id. at col.3 l.14–16. The patent’s focus on electrical insulation reflects the fact that the invention SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA v. BLUE RIDGE X-RAY COMPANY 7 involves placing elements of similar electrical voltage in close proximity to reduce “the insulator filling.” Id. at col.4 ll.47–49. This plain and ordinary meaning of “insulated” is confirmed by the dictionary of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (“IEEE”), which defines “insulated” as “. . . offering a high resistance to the passage of current . . . .” IEEE 100: The Authoritative Dictionary of IEEE Standard Terms 564 (7th ed. 2000). The district court recognized that construing “insulated chambers” as electrically insulated “has a common sense appeal.” Construction Op. at . Nevertheless, it concluded that the patentees disavowed this definition during prosecution. Id. at –10. The district court placed great weight on the patentees’ statement during prosecution describing their invention as requiring “different and isolated chambers,” quoting this language three different times. Id. at ,  (quoting ’534 application at applicants remarks (May 27, 2003) (emphases in original)). The district court’s quote of the prosecution history was inaccurate. The prosecution history refers to the chambers as being “different and insulated,” but never refers to them as being isolated. What was referred to as being “isolated” were the “different and isolated columns.” ’534 application, applicants remarks (May 27, 2003). The prosecution history thus fails to support the district court’s characterization of the two chambers as being so isolated that nothing can pass from one to the other. The prosecution history certainly does not rise to the level of a clear and unmistakable disavowal. Blue Ridge argues that the plain and ordinary meaning of “chambers” requires some sort of an enclosure. True enough. But Blue Ridge has failed to show that such an enclosure must be so closed or isolated as to prevent oil or other elements from passing from one enclosure to another. 8 SOCIEDAD ESPANOLA v. BLUE RIDGE X-RAY COMPANY Blue Ridge also argues that because the two chambers themselves have no electrical charge, the adjective “insulated” cannot refer to electrical insulation. Blue Ridge ignores the fact that the claim recites “positive voltage elements [that] are separated from the negative voltage elements by solid insulating means in two insulated chambers.” The purpose of the insulation is to electrically insulate the charged voltage elements found in the two chambers from one another, not just the chambers themselves. Finally, Blue Ridge argues that Figure 3 shows two chambers that are “enclosed or physically separate chambers.” Appellee’s Br. at 55. At best that suggests that two isolated chambers are within the scope of the claim. It does not suggest that the claim is so limited. See GE Lighting Solutions, LLC v. AgiLight, Inc., 750 F.3d 1304, 1309 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (“while the specifications only disclose a single embodiment of an IDC connector in Figure 6, they do not disavow or disclaim the plain meaning of IDC connector or otherwise limit it to that embodiment”). Thus, the proper construction of “two insulated chambers” is “two electrically insulated chambers.”