Opinion ID: 694395
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: other impugned federal circuit cases

Text: 369 The court in Tol-O-Matic cited Tillotson, Ltd. v. Walbro Corp., 831 F.2d 1033, 4 USPQ2d 1450 (Fed.Cir.1987); Tandon Corp. v. United States Int'l Trade Comm'n, 831 F.2d 1017, 4 USPQ2d 1283 (Fed.Cir.1987); Howes v. Medical Components, Inc.; Moeller v. Ionetics, Inc.; Snellman v. Ricoh Co., Ltd., 862 F.2d 283, 8 USPQ2d 1996 (Fed.Cir.1988), cert. denied, 491 U.S. 910, 109 S.Ct. 3199, 105 L.Ed.2d 707 (1989); Vieau v. Japax, Inc., 823 F.2d 1510, 3 USPQ2d 1094 (Fed.Cir.1987); Data Line Corp. v. Micro Technologies, Inc., 813 F.2d 1196, 1 USPQ2d 2052 (Fed.Cir.1987); Palumbo v. Don-Joy Co.; Bio-Rad Labs., Inc. v. Nicolet Instrument Corp.; Perkin-Elmer Corp. v. Computervision Corp.; and McGill, Inc. v. John Zink Co.. Only some of these decisions are today singled out for criticism; but all explicitly recognized the now-rejected difference between fact and law as applied to the meaning of disputed terms in patent claims, and all deferred, on appellate review, to the findings of the trier of fact. 370 For example, Data Line v. Micro Technologies related to computer technology wherein the jury, hearing expert testimony, interpreted means for sensing the presence or absence of output data; this court on appeal rejected the appellant's argument that the trial court should have determine[d] the scope and construction of claim 1, and instead gave deferential review to the jury verdict. In Snellman v. Ricoh the jury verdict was reviewed on the substantial evidence standard, not de novo. In Delta-X Corp. v. Baker Hughes Production Tools, Inc., 984 F.2d 410, 415, 25 USPQ2d 1447, 1450 (Fed.Cir.1993), this court approved the trial procedure whereby because of disputes over claim terms, the judge instead left resolution of these disputes to the jury. 371 There are many more cases than those I have listed, in which the jury decided technological and other factual disputes concerning the meaning and scope of terms of patent claims, thereby also deciding the fact of infringement, and where the jury verdict was reviewed on the usual substantial evidence/reasonable jury standard. There are many more cases than those I have listed, in which the district court at bench trial found the facts of what the claim terms mean and cover, and on appellate review this court applied the clearly erroneous standard of review. These procedures, which are in accord with factual determinations in other areas of litigation, have now been rejected. The new and unique treatment of disputed facts in patent cases does not appear to offer advantages to outweigh its disadvantages. 11