Opinion ID: 785187
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Missing Instruction

Text: 31 In this case, the district court did not read the court's claim constructions to the jury or instruct the jury that the claims, as construed, were to be applied against the alleged infringing machines. Sulzer argues that because the district court failed to give the jury any guidance about the district court's claim constructions, the jury was free to adopt any interpretation of the claim language. Sulzer thus contends that the absence of these instructions was prejudicial. 32 Picanol argues that the district court is not required to recite every claim construction or engage in an exercise in redundancy, citing United States Surgical Corp. v. Ethicon, Inc., 103 F.3d 1554, 1568 (Fed.Cir.1997). Picanol argues that the claim constructions rendered by the district court before the trial began shaped the testimony throughout trial. According to Picanol, any confusion by the jury as to the appropriate meaning of the claim terms was invited by Sulzer. Picanol also contends that Sulzer has failed to set forth any evidence of prejudice. We conclude that the district court erred in omitting from its jury charge any instructions on claim construction, but we find that such error, in this case, was harmless. 33 This court has long joined other circuits in holding that one duty of a trial court in any jury trial is to give instructions which are meaningful, not in terms of some abstract case, but which can be understood and given effect by the jury once it resolves the issues of fact which are in dispute. Structural Rubber Prods. Co. v. Park Rubber Co., 749 F.2d 707, 723 (Fed.Cir.1984) (citing Choy v. Bouchelle, 436 F.2d 319 (3d Cir.1970); Marshall v. Isthmian Lines, Inc., 334 F.2d 131, 138 n. 15 (5th Cir.1964)). Jury instructions are reviewed not only for accuracy, but for clarity, objectivity, and adequacy, taken as a whole. See U.S. Surgical, 103 F.3d at 1564; Brooktree Corp. v. Advanced Micro Devices, Inc., 977 F.2d 1555, 1570 (Fed. Cir.1992) (The correctness of a jury instruction ... is reviewed on appeal to determine whether, on the whole, the jury instructions were adequate to ensure that the jury fully understood the legal issues for each element of the case.). The meaning and scope of patent claim terms, as determined by a district court's claim construction rulings, are legal issues central to most patent cases. Thus, the district court normally will need to provide the jury in a patent case with instructions adequate to ensure that the jury fully understands the court's claim construction rulings and what the patentee covered by the claims. 34 The Markman decisions, in ruling that claim construction is a matter of law for the court, do not hold that the trial judge in a patent case must repeat or restate every claim term in the court's jury instructions. U.S. Surgical, 103 F.3d at 1568. The district court simply must give the jury guidance that can be understood and given effect by the jury once it resolves the issues of fact which are in dispute. Structural Rubber Prods., 749 F.2d at 718. This means that, as to claim coverage, the district court must instruct the jury on the meanings to be attributed to all disputed terms used in the claims in suit so that the jury will be able to intelligently determine the questions presented. Shad v. Dean Witter Reynolds, Inc., 799 F.2d 525, 532 (9th Cir.1986). 35 Although the particular form and precise nature of jury instructions are matters within the sound discretion of the district court, see Ballard Medical Products v. Allegiance Healthcare Corp., 268 F.3d 1352, 1358 (Fed.Cir.2001), the trial court in a patent case must at minimum take steps to assure that the jury understands that it is not free to consider its own meanings for disputed claim terms and that the district court's claim construction, determined as a matter of law, is adopted and applied by the jury in its deliberation of the facts. It is not enough that the testimony and argument at trial is consistent with the district court's construction of disputed claim terms. The jury must be told that the court has made a claim construction ruling that the jury must follow and cannot be left free to apply its own reading of disputed terms to the facts of the case. An instruction should be given to the jury on every material issue. 9A Wright & Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure § 2556, at 448 n. 20 (1995) (citing Gillentine v. McKeand, 426 F.2d 717, 723 (1st Cir.1970)). Accordingly, we hold that it is the duty of trial courts in patent cases in which claim construction rulings on disputed claim terms are made prior to trial and followed by the parties during the course of the trial to inform jurors both of the court's claim construction rulings on all disputed claim terms and of the jury's obligation to adopt and apply the court's determined meanings of disputed claim terms to the jury's deliberations of the facts. 36 In the present case, the district court remarked that [i]n this suit, the constructed terms were not in dispute at trial. The district court cited U.S. Surgical, 103 F.3d at 1567, for the proposition that [w]e doubt that Markman requires the trial judge to instruct as to an undisputed `claim construction' for every term. Order at 3-4. As such, the district court found no error and denied Sulzer's motion for a new trial. Id. In so holding, the district court made two errors. First, the district court misapprehended our precedent in U.S. Surgical in concluding that no claim construction jury instruction is needed whenever claim terms are not in dispute at trial. In U.S. Surgical, the claim terms were not disputed by the parties at any point in the proceedings. The claim terms in that case were understood throughout the case as having their plain meaning. U.S. Surgical held that when the parties do not dispute that the words of the claims simply mean what they say, the district court is not required to add an additional layer of complexity by constructing the words of the claim merely to reiterate those words in a jury instruction. In this case, however, the meanings of several claim terms were in dispute and were only resolved by the district court's Markman rulings. The plain meaning recognized and not disputed to apply in U.S. Surgical was not present in this case, at least with respect to the disputed terms resolved by the court's claim construction rulings. While it is true that, by the time of trial, the disputed meaning of the claim terms had been determined, that does not change the fact that the meaning of the claim terms was not apparent, was disputed by the parties, and was resolved only by the court's claim construction rulings. 37 Second, because the district court made specific claim construction rulings, it was required to inform the jury that it was not free to consider its own meanings for the disputed terms but must apply the district court's construction of the terms in its deliberations. The failure of the district court to inform the jury of the court's claim construction and to instruct the jury of its obligation to apply that construction in its infringement deliberations left the jury free to make its own determination of the meaning of the claims and was error. 38 Having shown error, Sulzer must also establish that the error was prejudicial. Prejudicial error exists if the outcome of the case would have been different had the correct instruction been given. Environ Prods., 215 F.3d at 1266-67. Upon examination of the entirety of the proceedings, we conclude that Sulzer has not met this burden. The evidence presented at trial reflected the court's claim construction. For example, one of Sulzer's experts, Dr. Adanur, specifically testified about a claim chart and stated that the rephrased claim language set forth in the chart was determined by the district court. The evidence that Sulzer points to as being contrary is the testimony of Picanol's witness, Mr. Shefte. In particular, Sulzer contends that Mr. Shefte paraphrased a claim term on direct examination, and on cross-examination, Mr. Shefte was shown a demonstrative exhibit showing the jury both the court's claim constructions and the claim constructions set forth in Mr. Shefte's expert report. Further, Sulzer makes a brief argument that contrary claim construction testimony also came in through the testimony of Sulzer's own expert, Dr. Adanur. Thus, the evidence that Sulzer presents as being contrary to the district court's claim constructions, and thus, confusing to the jury, is largely testimony that Sulzer itself elicited, and was de minimis compared to the testimony that properly communicated the court's claim construction. See, e.g., Chem. Eng'g Corp. v. Essef Indus., Inc., 795 F.2d 1565, 1572 (Fed.Cir.1986) (precluding party from complaining about invited error on appeal); Weinar, 744 F.2d at 805 (upholding the district court because, inter alia, appellant's argument disregards the `invited error' rule in that much of the testimony now objected to was elicited by [appellant's] counsel on cross examination.). Because the district court's claim constructions were reflected in the testimony at trial, and because any testimony to the contrary was invited error by Sulzer, we have no basis to conclude that, had the district court instructed the jury on its claim construction rulings and on the jury's obligation to apply the district court's claim constructions to the facts, the result of the case would have been different. To the extent that the jury instructions were erroneous, Sulzer has failed to establish prejudice flowing from those errors. Therefore, we affirm the district court's denial of Sulzer's motion for a new trial.