Opinion ID: 2683355
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Conditional Grant of New Trial on Anticipation

Text: Finally, we turn to the district court’s conditional grant of a new trial. A court may set aside the verdict and order a new trial even if no motion for JMOL was made under Rule 50(a). See Bracey v. Bd. of Educ. of City of Bridgeport, 368 F.3d 108, 117-20 (2d Cir. 2004) (granting Rule 59 motion in the absence of a Rule 50(a) motion); MacQuesten Gen. Contracting, Inc. v. HCE, Inc., 128 F. App’x 782, 784 (2d Cir. 2005) (“While MacQuesten failed during the trial to make a motion for judgment as a matter [of] law pursuant to Rule 50(a), that is no impediment to a Rule 59(a) motion.”). In the Second Circuit, “[a] motion for new trial ordinarily should not be granted unless the trial court is convinced that the jury has reached a seriously erroneous result or that the verdict is a miscarriage of justice.” Townsend v. Benjamin Enters., Inc., 679 F.3d 41, 51 (2d Cir. 2012) (citation omitted). The Second Circuit reviews whether a district court properly granted a new trial under an abuse of discretion standard. Binder v. Long Island Lighting Co., 57 F.3d 193, 202 (2d Cir. 1995). Below, the district court did not elaborate on its reasons for granting BestMed’s motion for a new trial, conditioned on our determination that BestMed failed to preserve its right to bring a post-trial motion for JMOL on anticipation. Instead, it made its ruling in a footnote. See Medisim, 959 F. Supp. 2d at 421 n.158. Medisim challenges the district court’s reasoning, or more accurately the lack thereof, arguing that the district court failed to state the grounds for conditionally granting 14 MEDISIM LTD. v. BESTMED, LLC the motion for a new trial as required in Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(c)(1). Medisim argues that in addressing the request for a new trial only in a footnote, the district court did not provide any legal or evidentiary grounds to support the conditional grant. It claims that in its brevity, the district court abused its discretion. See, e.g., Portage II v. Bryant Petroleum Corp., 899 F.2d 1514, 1524 (6th Cir. 1990) (stating that “[t]he district court’s failure to state a basis for conditionally granting the new trial, provides another reason for finding that a new trial is unwarranted”). However, BestMed argues this was not a case where the court found the verdict against the weight of the evidence without further elaboration. It notes that the district court provided a detailed explanation as to why it found that BestMed had proven anticipation. See Medisim, 959 F. Supp. 2d at 420-25. We agree with BestMed. Given the context and the surrounding discussion, the district court’s reasoning is clear enough to pass Rule 50(c)(1) muster. The section of its opinion where the district court conditionally granted the new trial is entitled “The ’668 Patent Is Anticipated by the FHT-1 Thermometer.” Medisim, 959 F. Supp. 2d at 420. In that section, the district court calls BestMed’s anticipation argument overwhelmingly strong. Id. The district court then proceeds to discuss all of the evidence which supports its conclusion, which we summarize here. Id. at 420-25. The record shows that Medisim’s expert witness, Dr. Lipson, conceded that the FHT-1 calculated an intermediate temperature and that if “the intermediate temperature calculated by . . . the prior art FHT-1 thermometer, is a deep tissue temperature,” then the FHT-1 anticipates claim 1 of the ’668 patent and “whatever [other claims] require[] the deep tissue limitation.” J.A. 4442-43. Therefore, as the district court correctly noted, anticipaMEDISIM LTD. v. BESTMED, LLC 15 tion turns on one issue in this case: whether the intermediate temperature concededly calculated by the FHT-1 using the heat-flux algorithm of the ’397 patent qualifies as a deep tissue temperature as claimed in the ’668 patent. The specification of the ’668 patent relies on the ’397 patent to provide the algorithm to compute its deep-tissue temperature. The ’668 patent defines a local, deep-tissue temperature as “a temperature at a location under the skin that is the source of heat conducted to the sensors in the probe.” ’668 patent col. 6 ll. 59-62. It also expressly describes the “heat flux calculation” of the ’397 patent as a method “to rapidly compute a deep tissue temperature of the body.” Id. at col. 1 ll. 65-67 (emphasis added). The specification further describes a processing unit that uses the heat-flux algorithm of the ’397 patent to generate the deep-tissue temperature. Id. at col. 6 ll. 55-59 (“Using the heat flux algorithm described in the above-mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 6,280,397 . . . , the processing unit calculates from the temperature readings a local temperature.”); col. 7 ll. 16-17 (“[T]he value of local body temperature determined by the ’397 algorithm.”). In the preferred embodiment, the deep-tissue temperature is converted to a corebody temperature using an equation that includes the output of the heat-flux algorithm of the ’397 patent, denoted Tavg. Id. at col. 9 ll. 34-36 (equation); col. 9 ll. 62-63 (defining Tavg as the output of the heat-flux algorithm of the ’397 patent). This intrinsic evidence, all discussed by the district court, heavily supports the conclusion that the FHT-1 calculates a deep tissue temperature and, therefore, anticipates the ’668 patent. BestMed’s expert, Mr. Goldberg, also offered supporting testimony, which the district court considered. For example, Mr. Goldberg identified particular portions of code that shows a calculation of a deep tissue temperature. Additionally, Medisim produced and distributed many pre-litigation documents stating that its R.A.T.E. TM 16 MEDISIM LTD. v. BESTMED, LLC technology as found in the FHT-1 thermometer measures the temperature under the skin. While not dispositive in and of themselves, 2 these documents further support the district’s court conclusion that BestMed is entitled to a new trial. For example, one such document stressed that “[i]n R.A.T.E TM technology we do not use [a] prediction for getting the final temperature, but we use [a] calculation in real time of the temperature beneath the skin.” J.A. 9454. Medisim tried to dismiss this evidence as marketing fluff, but the documents addressed sophisticated audiences and contained equations and other technical descriptions. This too supports the conclusion that the R.A.T.E TM technology found in the FHT-1 used the heatflux algorithm of the ’397 patent in the same way described in the ’668 patent. While we acknowledge that the district court’s discussion of the aforementioned evidence ends with the grant of JMOL on anticipation, we conclude that this same reasoning is applicable to the conditional grant of a new trial. Therefore, the district court’s conditional grant of a new trial was amply supported by the evidence. It did not abuse its discretion in granting BestMed’s motion for a new trial. Medisim also challenges the district court’s statement that, should the case be remanded for a new trial, it would “then entertain a motion for summary judgment on anticipation.” Medisim, 959 F. Supp. 2d at 421 n.158. It argues that the district court has already “pre-judged this 2 A trademark acts as an identifier of the source of goods or services and does not automatically evidence meaning as to functionality. 15 U.S.C. §§ 1052 & 1127; Christian Louboutin S.A. v. Yves Saint Laurent Am. Holding, Inc., 696 F.3d 206, 218 (2d Cir. 2012) (citing Qualitex Co. v. Jacobson Prods. Co., 514 U.S. 159, 165 (1995)). MEDISIM LTD. v. BESTMED, LLC 17 summary judgment motion in BestMed’s favor.” Appellant’s Br. 57. But Medisim’s contention is premature. We repeat, however, what we said in a previous case: “In remanding for a limited new trial [on literal infringement and obviousness] . . . we do not foreclose the district court from entertaining a motion for summary judgment on these issues that might obviate the need for a further trial.” ArcelorMittal Fr. v. AK Steel Corp., 700 F.3d 1314, 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2012).