Opinion ID: 2796625
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Reasonable Certainty Under Nautilus II Is a

Text: Familiar Standard As the Supreme Court emphasized in Nautilus II, § 112 “requires that a patent specification ‘conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter’” of the invention. 134 S. Ct. at 2124. The Court found too imprecise our “insolubly ambiguous” standard, and instead held that “a patent is invalid for indefiniteness if its claims, read in light of the specification delineating the patent, and the prosecution history, fail to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention.” Id. (emphasis added). BIOSIG INSTRUMENTS, INC. v. NAUTILUS, INC. 9 The Court has accordingly modified the standard by which lower courts examine allegedly ambiguous claims; we may now steer by the bright star of “reasonable certainty,” rather than the unreliable compass of “insoluble ambiguity.” Reasonableness is the core of much of the common law, and “reasonable certainty” has been defined in broad spectra of the law. See, e.g., Palsgraf v. Long Island R.R. Co., 162 N.E. 99 (N.Y. 1928) (explaining the “reasonable [person]” foreseeability standard in tort); cf. Jay v. Sec’y of Dep’t of Health & Human Servs., 998 F.2d 979, 984 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (discussing whether a reasonable person could conclude a certain vaccine caused the child’s death). The Supreme Court has articulated a spectrum for interpretation of the phrase “reasonable certainty.” 2 2 Prior to Nautilus II, the Court discussed “reasonable certainty” on numerous occasions. See, e.g., Kelo v. City of New London, 545 U.S. 469, 487–88 (2005) (where petitioners argued the Court should require “reasonable certainty” that expected public benefits in a takings case would actually accrue, the Court declined to impose that “heightened form of review”); Allentown Mack Sales & Serv., Inc. v. Nat’l Labor Review Bd., 522 U.S. 359, 369 (1998) (express disavowals by more than half of an employee bargaining unit would establish reasonable certainty of union nonsupport); Coffy v. Republic Steel Corp., 447 U.S. 191, 197–99 (1980) (explaining “there must be a reasonable certainty that the benefit would have accrued if the employee had not gone into the military service”); Ala. Power Co. v. Davis, 431 U.S. 581, 587–88, 591 (1977) (reasonable certainty requirement for accrual of benefits in veteran’s reemployment case satisfied where work history demonstrates veteran “would almost certainly have accumulated accredited service”); Tilton v. Mo. Pac. R.R. Co., 376 U.S. 169, 180–81 (1964); Boyce Motor Lines v. United States, 342 U.S. 337, 340 BIOSIG INSTRUMENTS, INC. v. NAUTILUS, INC. 10 (1952) (notice of conduct required by criminal statute must be sufficiently definite to guide its application, however “[t]he requirement of reasonable certainty does not preclude the use of ordinary terms to express ideas which find adequate interpretation in common usage and understanding”) (emphasis added) (citation omitted); United States v. Penn. Foundry & Mfg. Co., 337 U.S. 198, 207–08 (1949) (declining to accept the Court of Claims “rough estimate” as providing the reasonable certainty required for establishing damages); United Carbon Co. v. Binney & Smith Co., 317 U.S. 228, 234 (1942) (“What on first impression [in a patent infringement action] appears to be reasonable certainty of dimension disappears when we learn that ‘approximately one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter’ includes a variation from approximately 1/4th to 1/100th of an inch. So read, the claims are but inaccurate suggestions of the functions of the product.”) (emphasis added); Palmer v. Conn. Ry. & Lighting Co., 311 U.S. 544, 558, 561 (1941) (“Certainty in the fact of damage is essential. [Reasonable] [c]ertainty as to the amount goes no further than to require a basis for a reasoned conclusion.”); Sheldon v. Metro-Goldwyn Pictures Corp., 309 U.S. 390, 404 (1940) (analogizing copyright damages to patent infringement, the Court found a reasonable certainty requirement satisfied not with “mathematical exactness,” but only a “reasonable approximation”); Sproles v. Binford, 286 U.S. 374, 393 (1932) (“The requirement of reasonable certainty does not preclude the use of ordinary terms to express ideas which find adequate interpretation in common usage and understanding,”); Hamilton-Brown Shoe Co. v. Wolf Bros. & Co., 240 U.S. 251, 261–62 (1916) (analogizing trademark damages to patent damages and holding “[t]he difficulty lies in ascertaining what proportion of the profit is due to the trademark . . . and as this cannot be ascertained with any reasonable certainty, it is more consonant with reason and justice that the owner of the BIOSIG INSTRUMENTS, INC. v. NAUTILUS, INC. 11 Following the issuance of Nautilus II, this court applied the reasonable certainty standard in DDR Holdings, LLC v. Hotels.com, 773 F.3d 1245, 1260–61 (Fed. Cir. 2014). (after analogizing to facts from prior cases and applying a “reasonable certainty” standard, finding the term “look and feel” had an established meaning in the art as demonstrated by the trial record, thus informing those skilled in the art with reasonable certainty). In Interval Licensing, the “reasonable certainty” test was applied to determine whether one of the embodiments provided “a reasonably clear and exclusive definition,” with a focus on the “relationship” between the embodiments and the claim language, and whether the embodiments created “objective boundaries” for those skilled in the art. 766 F.3d at 1371. The court also stated: trademark should have the whole profit than that he should be deprived of any part of it by the fraudulent act of the defendant”); Ont. Land Co. v. Yordy, 212 U.S. 152, 157 (1909) (“The first requisite of an adequate description is that the land shall be identified with reasonable certainty; but the degree of certainty required is always qualified by the application of the rule that that is certain which can be made certain.”) (quoting Jones on Law of Real Property in Conveyancing § 323); Hetzel v. Balt. & Ohio R.R. Co., 169 U.S. 26, 38 (1898) (“In many cases [proof which excludes the possibility of a doubt] cannot be given, and yet there might be a reasonable certainty, founded upon inferences legitimately and properly deducible from the evidence . . . .”); United States v. Smith, 18 U.S 153, 160–62 (1820) (the crime of piracy is defined by the law of nations with reasonable certainty); cf. Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 578 n.5 (2007) (Stevens, J., dissenting); Boyde v. California, 494 U.S. 370, 393 n.2 (1990); Thor Power Tool Co. v. Comm’r, 439 U.S. 522, 543–44 (1979); Pub. Util. Comm’n v. United States, 355 U.S. 534, 552 (1958). BIOSIG INSTRUMENTS, INC. v. NAUTILUS, INC. 12 We do not understand the Supreme Court to have implied in Nautilus [II], and we do not hold today, that terms of degree are inherently indefinite. . . . Although absolute or mathematical precision is not required, it is not enough as some of the language in our prior cases may have suggested to identify “some standard for measuring the scope of the phrase.” . . . The patents’ “unobtrusive manner” phrase is highly subjective, and, on its face, provides little guidance to one of skill in the art. . . . The patents contemplate a variety of stimuli that could impact different users in different ways. As we have explained, a term of degree fails to provide sufficient notice of its scope if it depends on the unpredictable vagaries of any one person’s opinion. Id. at 1371–72 (citations omitted); see also Augme Techs. v. Yahoo!, Inc., 755 F.3d 1326, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (A limitation “clear on its face” “unquestionably meets [the Nautilus II] standard.”). In the wake of Nautilus II, judges have had no problem operating under the reasonable certainty standard. For example, Judge Bryson, sitting by designation in Texas, stated: “Indefiniteness is a legal determination; if the court concludes that a person of ordinary skill in the art, with the aid of the specification, would understand what is claimed, the claim is not indefinite.” Freeny v. Apple Inc., No. 2:13-CV-00361WCB, 2014 WL 4294505, at  (E.D. Tex. Aug. 28, 2014) (describing the question as whether “a person of ordinary skill can discern from the claims and specification what the bounds of the claim are with reasonable certainty”). After listing numerous fact-specific examples, Judge Bryson noted that “[c]ontrary to the defendant’s suggestion, [the Nautilus II] standard does not render all of the prior Federal Circuit and district court cases inapplicable” and “all that is required is that the patent BIOSIG INSTRUMENTS, INC. v. NAUTILUS, INC. 13 apprise [ordinary-skilled artisans] of the scope of the invention.” Id. at . 3 3 Prior to Nautilus II, a number of our cases applied a reasonable certainty standard in various contexts. See, e.g., ICU Med., Inc. v. Alaris Med. Sys., 558 F.3d 1368, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (discussing the importation of limitations from the specification into the claims, noting that “the line between construing terms and importing limitations can be discerned with reasonable certainty and predictability if the court’s focus remains on how a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand the claim terms”) (quoting Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc)). In a lost profits damages analysis, we noted the amount “need not be proved with unerring precision” and held that lost profits had been proved with reasonable certainty and that a district court finding to the contrary was clearly erroneous where the dealer profit margin was “roughly twenty-five percent of the dealer price.” Ryco, Inc. v. Ag-Bag Corp., 857 F.2d 1418, 1428 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (citations omitted). In In re Clarke, 356 F.2d 987, 992 (CCPA 1966), our predecessor court held that “where it can be concluded that facts . . . in support of a general allegation of conception and reduction to practice . . . would persuade one of ordinary skill in the art to a reasonable certainty that the applicant possessed so much of the invention as to encompass the reference disclosure, then that showing should be accepted as establishing a prima facie case of inventorship.” Finally, our predecessor noted, in Young v. Bullitt, 233 F.2d 347, 351 (CCPA 1956), that in a priority contest in a patent interference, “[t]he question generally is whether, when all the circumstances are considered together, there is a reasonable certainty as to the identity of the product. Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is not necessary where applications were copending.” BIOSIG INSTRUMENTS, INC. v. NAUTILUS, INC. 14