Opinion ID: 4523913
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: “therapy signal”

Text: All but four of Nevro’s asserted claims recite a “therapy signal,” 4 which the district court construed as an “electrical impulse” or “electrical signal.” J.A. 5. In reaching its construction, the district court relied on a passage from the ’472 patent specification, which it contends “defined” the term “therapy signal.” On appeal, Nevro challenges the court’s construction. It argues that “therapy signal” should instead be construed as “a spinal cord stimulation or modulation signal to treat pain.” Appellant’s Br. 63–64. Boston Scientific contends that the district court erred in holding that “therapy signal” does not render the asserted claims indefinite. We review a district court’s claim construction de novo except for underlying fact findings related to extrinsic evidence, which we review for clear error. Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 831, 835 (2015). “The words 4 Claims 11, 21 and 23 of the ’102 patent and claim 58 of the ’533 patent do not recite a “therapy signal.” Case: 18-2220 Document: 69 Page: 15 Filed: 04/09/2020 NEVRO CORP. v. BOSTON SCIENTIFIC CORP. 15 of a claim are generally given their ordinary and customary meaning as understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art when read in the context of the specification and prosecution history.” Thorner v. Sony Comput. Entm’t Am. LLC, 669 F.3d 1362, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2012). While the district court correctly determined that the claims reciting a “therapy signal” are not indefinite, we hold that the district court erred in its construction of the term. The plain language of the claims makes clear that the claimed “therapy signal” is for pain-relief spinal cord stimulation therapy. For example, claim 37 of the ’533 patent recites a “spinal cord stimulation system for reducing or eliminating pain in a patient, the system comprising: an implantable signal generator configured to generate a nonparesthesia-producing therapy signal.” Likewise, claim 1 of the ’472 patent recites “a method for alleviating patient pain or discomfort” comprising “programming the signal generator to generate and deliver an electrical therapy signal to the spinal cord region.” The pain-relief therapy component of the claimed “therapy signal” is confirmed by the specifications of the asserted patents, as they consistently identify treating pain as the purpose of the claimed invention. See, e.g., ’533 patent at 3:11–13 (describing embodiments of the claimed invention as “directed to producing a therapeutic effect that includes pain reduction in patients”); id. at 3:39–45, 50–56, 5:35–38. In fact, during prosecution of the ’842 patent, Nevro distinguished the claimed “therapy signals” from prior art electrical signals on the basis that the prior art signals were merely “diagnostic signals.” J.A.8837, 8814. The portion of the ’472 patent that the district court contends “defined” the term “therapy signal” merely states that “[t]he pulse generator 101 or other controller transmits instructions and power to the electric array 103 via the lead body 102 to apply therapy signals (e.g., electrical impulses) to the nerve fibers . . . .” ’472 patent at 5:44–49. This does not meet the exacting standard for redefining Case: 18-2220 Document: 69 Page: 16 Filed: 04/09/2020 16 NEVRO CORP. v. BOSTON SCIENTIFIC CORP. “therapy signal.” See Hill-Rom Servs., Inc. v. Stryker Corp., 755 F.3d 1367, 1371–73 (Fed Cir. 2014); see also Interval Licensing, 766 F.3d at 1373 (“declin[ing] to cull out a single ‘e.g.’ phrase from a lengthy written description to serve as the exclusive definition” of a claim term). And the other passages cited by the district court merely indicate that electrical signals that stimulate or modulate a spinal cord to treat pain are examples of “therapy signals.” ’533 patent at 3:45–53, 4:43–50. Boston Scientific does not dispute that the claimed “therapy signal” is used to provide pain relief. Instead, it contends that the asserted claims reciting a “therapy signal” are indefinite because “the patents do not disclose the structure or steps which necessarily achieve the claimed therapeutic signal.” Appellees’ Br. 58. It argues that the specification fails to inform a person of ordinary skill in the art how to achieve the claimed therapeutic result with reasonable certainty because “two signals with the same set of characteristics (e.g., frequency, amplitude, and pulse width) may result in therapy in one patient and no therapy in another.” Id. But, as discussed above, the fact that a signal does not provide pain relief in all circumstances does not render the claims indefinite. Geneva, 349 F.3d at 1384. Accordingly, we hold that the district court correctly determined that the term “therapy signal” does not render the asserted claims indefinite. We also hold that the district court erred in its construction of the term. A “therapy signal” is “a spinal cord stimulation or modulation signal to treat pain.”