Opinion ID: 781031
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Isolating

Text: 15 The first dispute over claim construction concerns whether the term isolating recited in the claim's preamble imposes a limitation on the claim. While Schering, as we shall see, argues that the district court construed isolating too broadly, Boehringer asserts that the district court erred by treating isolating as a claim limitation at all. According to Boehringer, isolating, as well as growing, are mere recitations of purpose and as such do not impose any limitations on the method defined by the balance of the claim. 16 Boehringer is correct in that a preamble simply stating the intended use or purpose of the invention will usually not limit the scope of the claim, unless the preamble provides antecedents for ensuing claim terms and limits the claim accordingly. C.R. Bard, Inc. v. M3 Sys., Inc., 157 F.3d 1340, 1350, 48 USPQ2d 1225, 1230-31 (Fed.Cir.1998). Neither growing nor isolating is required to provide antecedent basis for subsequent claim language. 17 An intended use or purpose usually will not limit the scope of the claim because such statements usually do no more than define a context in which the invention operates. But as we explained in Griffin v. Bertina, 285 F.3d 1029, 62 USPQ2d 1431 (Fed.Cir.2002), preamble language will limit the claim if it recites not merely a context in which the invention may be used, but the essence of the invention without which performance of the recited steps is nothing but an academic exercise. Id. at 1033, 62 USPQ2d at 1434. This principle holds true here, as it frequently does for method claims: growing and isolating are not merely circumstances in which the method may be useful, but instead are the raison d'être of the claimed method itself. Divorced from the process of growing and isolating virus, the claimed method reduces to nothing more than a process for producing cytopathic effects in sheets of cultured MA-104 cells-a process whose absence of fathomable utility rather suggests the academic exercise. Gauging the effect of preamble language based on the claim as a whole, see Bell Communications Research, Inc. v. Vitalink Communications Corp., 55 F.3d 615, 620, 34 USPQ2d 1816, 1819-20 (Fed. Cir.1995), it becomes apparent that claim 2 is in fact directed to a process for growing or isolating viruses. Accordingly, the district court properly recognized isolating as part of the definition of the claimed subject matter and thereby a limitation of the claim. 18 Having concluded that the district court correctly read isolating as imposing a limitation on the claim, we also conclude that the district court gave the term its proper construction. Essentially adopting Boehringer's interpretation, the district court held that the virus is isolated not only when the virus is cultured from tissues of an infected animal (the initial recovery of the virus), but also during subsequent serial passages of the virus, when the virus is cultured from an aliquot of an infected cell culture. Boehringer, 984 F.Supp. at 248. In other words, PRRS virus is isolated according to claim 2 each time the virus is propagated into a fresh tissue culture bottle, not just when the virus is initially isolated from an infected pig. 19 Schering, however, contends that isolating can refer only to the initial growth of virus from an infected tissue sample or other natural source, and not to subsequent passages in culture. Under such a construction, Schering would escape infringement because Schering isolated the virus from infected pigs in 1991, before the '778 patent issued. Moreover, while Schering grows its attenuated vaccine virus on MA-104 cells, Schering initially isolated the PRRS virus on cultured porcine lung cells, rather than the simian cells required by the '778 claims. 20 The first step in claim construction is to determine the ordinary and customary meaning, if any, that would be attributed to the term by those skilled in the art. Rexnord Corp. v. Laitram Corp., 274 F.3d 1336, 1342, 60 USPQ2d 1851, 1854 (Fed.Cir.2001). Dictionary definitions frequently are useful in this process, Tex. Digital Sys., Inc. v. Telegenix, Inc., 308 F.3d 1193, 1202-03, 64 USPQ2d 1812, 1818-19 (Fed.Cir.2002), and in support of its construction the district court cited a common definition of isolate found in the Random House College Dictionary: to set or place apart, detach or separate. Boehringer, 984 F.Supp. at 248. From this definition, the district court concluded that the PRRS virus was isolated in each serial passage, when the virus was separated from the infected cells. 21 According to Schering, however, the district court's reliance on this definition was erroneous. Because a term's ordinary meaning is that which it assumes in the field of the invention, Toro Co. v. White Consol. Indus., Inc., 199 F.3d 1295, 1299, 53 USPQ2d 1065, 1067 (Fed.Cir.1999), Schering contends that the district court should have looked instead to narrower definitions found in dictionaries of microbiology and molecular biology-some of which define isolation as the process of obtaining a pure culture from a naturally occurring population. Under such a definition, serial passaging of a virus during cell culture would not constitute isolating. 22 Boehringer points out that Schering's technical definitions were not introduced into the record at trial, nor, apparently, were they in any way presented to the district court. Like trial judges, we are free to consult dictionaries regardless of whether they have been offered by a party in evidence or not. Tex. Digital, 308 F.3d at 1203, 64 USPQ2d at 1819. Nonetheless, parties are obliged to make their claim construction arguments in the first instance to the district court, and we will rarely give weight to arguments that rely on sources brought forth for the first time on appeal. But Schering's technical dictionary definitions would carry little weight even if they had been first presented to the district court. Schering leads off its argument with the following technical definition of isolation: 23 ( microbiol. ) Any procedure in which a given species of organism, present in a particular sample or environment, is obtained in pure culture. 24 Dictionary of Microbiology and Molecular Biology 468 (2d ed.1987) (emphases added). Plainly, this definition does not require that the organism originate in a sample containing a natural or mixed population, and therefore easily encompasses propagation of a virus during serial passage, in which the virus is obtained from a culture comprising viruses, uninfected cells, infected cells, and dead cells. And while some of Schering's technical definitions do refer to obtaining organisms from natural populations, the remainder establish that the customary meaning of isolating in the field of the invention is broader than Schering maintains. The district court therefore properly determined that the ordinary meaning of isolating encompasses more than the initial isolation of a virus from an infected tissue sample. 25 While there is a strong presumption that the ordinary and accustomed meaning of a claim term governs its construction, this presumption may be overcome by evidence from the specification or prosecution history showing that the patentee employed the term in a manner inconsistent with its ordinary meaning. Teleflex, Inc. v. Ficosa N. Am. Corp., 299 F.3d 1313, 1325-26, 63 USPQ2d 1374, 1380-81 (Fed.Cir.2002). Schering contends that both the patent's specification and prosecution history show reliance on a narrower meaning of isolating, but its arguments are not persuasive. Under the heading ISOLATION, the specification discloses both the culturing of tissue homogenate from infected animals, and several subsequent passages of the virus in culture. '778 patent, col. 2, l. 42 col. 3, l. 54. Thus, to the extent that the specification uses a form of the verb isolate, the specification supports the broader meaning of isolating advanced by Boehringer rather than the narrower construction advocated by Schering. Schering also points to the fact that the specification uses the word recovered as a synonym for isolated, and uses the term recover only when referring to culture of the virus from tissue samples. But this observation strengthens Boehringer's position, not Schering's: the use of a different word to describe the isolation of PRRS virus from infected tissue samples-recover-suggests that isolate does not refer solely to this process. 26 Schering's prosecution history argument is similarly unavailing. During prosecution, Boehringer submitted several publications to the Patent and Trademark Office to establish that ATCC-VR2332 was the virus that caused PRRS. Because these references use the words isolate and isolation to refer to the recovery of the virus from tissues of infected animals, Schering contends that the term isolating in the claims should be so limited. But while references submitted during prosecution may shed light on the ordinary and accustomed meaning of a claim term, a patentee does not renounce the ordinary meaning of a term merely by submitting a reference that employs a different meaning. Absent a reliance on the narrower meaning by the patentee during prosecution, the references' use of isolating in a narrower sense does not preclude the claim term from also encompassing steps subsequent to the initial isolation. The district court construed this term correctly. 27