Opinion ID: 783283
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The generally parallel and substantially horizontal limitations in the '015 patent family

Text: 52 With respect to the '015 patent family, Anchor argues that the district court erred in its construction of the phrase generally parallel by effectively reading out the adverb generally and in its lack of construction of the term substantially horizontal. Anchor also argues that the district court erred as a matter of law in concluding that prosecution history estoppel barred Anchor's claims of infringement of the '015 patent under the doctrine of equivalents. 53 Rockwood defends the district court's claim construction of generally parallel on the ground that the district court properly reasoned that modifiers, no matter how strong, cannot alter the meaning of a claim term describing a mathematical concept so that the concept would be false if read to describe an accused device. Anchor, 252 F.Supp.2d at 852. Rockwood also argues that the district court did not err by declining to construe substantially horizontal, because the district court already interpreted the term substantially planar and the interpretation of horizontal with respect to a surface presumes that the surface is planar.
54 Claims 38 and 50 of the '015 patent as well as claims 30 and 43 of the '713 patent require a bottom face which is generally parallel to the top face. '015 patent, col. 18, ll. 22-23; id. at col. 16, ll. 42-43; '713 patent, col. 14, ll. 20-21; id. at col. 15, ll. 53-54 (emphasis added). Because [parallelism] is a mathematical concept that is either true or false, Anchor, 252 F.Supp.2d at 853, the district court interpreted generally parallel to be limited to the ordinary meaning of parallel. Id. at 852. This was error. 55 While the term generally parallel, as the district court noted, is mathematically imprecise, we note that words of approximation, such as generally and substantially, are descriptive terms commonly used in patent claims `to avoid a strict numerical boundary to the specified parameter.' Ecolab, Inc. v. Envirochem, Inc., 264 F.3d 1358, 1367 (Fed.Cir.2001) (quoting Pall Corp. v. Micron Separations, Inc., 66 F.3d 1211, 1217 (Fed.Cir.1995)); see, e.g., Andrew Corp v. Gabriel Elecs. Inc., 847 F.2d 819, 821-22 (Fed.Cir.1988) (noting that terms such as approach each other, close to, substantially equal, and closely approximate are ubiquitously used in patent claims and that such usages, when serving reasonably to describe the claimed subject matter to those of skill in the field of the invention and to distinguish the claimed subject matter from the prior art, have been accepted in patent examination and upheld by the courts). And, while ideally, all terms in a disputed claim would be definitively bounded and clear, such is rarely the case in the art of claim drafting. In this case, exact parallelism is sufficient, but not necessary, to meet the limitation of the claim term generally parallel. 56 It is undisputed in this case that ordinarily, parallel means everywhere equal distant. Anchor, 252 F.Supp.2d at 852 (citing Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary 842 (10th ed.1998)). Additionally, the relevant definition of generally is in disregard of specific instances and with regard to an overall picture; on the whole, as a rule. Webster's Third New International Dictionary 945. Because the claim language itself expressly ties the adverb generally to the adjective parallel, the ordinary meaning of the phrase generally parallel envisions some amount of deviation from exactly parallel. It is the claim limitation, as a whole, that must be considered in claim construction. Apex, 325 F.3d at 1374. 57 The written description does not specify any special definition for the terms generally, parallel, or the phrase generally parallel. See, e.g., '015 patent, col. 5, ll. 5-6 (The top surface 26 generally lies parallel to the bottom surface 28.); '713 patent, col. 5, ll. 10-11 (same). Moreover, nothing in the prosecution history of the '015 patent family clearly limits the scope of generally parallel such that the adverb generally does not broaden the meaning of parallel. Accordingly, we hold that the phrase generally parallel envisions some amount of deviation from exactly parallel.
58 Anchor also argues that, by not interpreting the only disputed term, substantially horizontal, in claim 61 of the '713 patent, the district court erred as a matter of law. We agree. In order to review the court's finding of noninfringement, we must know what meaning and scope the district court gave to the asserted claims. Graco Inc. v. Binks Mfg. Co., 60 F.3d 785, 791 (Fed.Cir.1995). From the district court's opinion, there is no basis for concluding that the district court performed either of the two steps required for a proper infringement analysis with respect to the substantially horizontal limitation before it granted partial summary judgment of noninfringement. As in Graco, a case on all fours with the situation here, the entire omission of a claim interpretation analysis from the opinion, and the conclusory factual findings on infringement, each provide an independent basis for remand. Id. The district court therefore erred in two respects which preclude a proper grant of partial summary judgment of noninfringement. 59