Opinion ID: 210375
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: DISCUSSION I Literal Infringement

Text: L.B. Plastics first argues that the district court erred in construing the term weld to require melting of the screen and guard panel, and that consequently the district court's grant of summary judgment of noninfringement was improper. In construing claims we search for the ordinary and customary meaning of a claim term to a person of ordinary skill in the art. We determine this meaning by looking first at intrinsic evidence such as surrounding claim language, the specification, the prosecution history, and also at extrinsic evidence, which may include expert testimony and dictionaries. Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1314-19 (Fed.Cir.2005) (en banc). The specification of the '700 patent describes a composite gutter guard according to the present invention and discloses that [t]he mesh layer . . . is attached to the guard panel [ ] by continuous ultrasonic or heat welding.  The attachment involves the use of a mesh preferably constructed of a material which readily fuses to the polymer guard panel [ ] during welding. '700 patent col.3 II.31-32, 39-44 (emphasis added). Since the intrinsic record provides no further guidance to the meaning of the terms weld, fuse or ultrasonic or heat welding, the district court properly turned to extrinsic evidence in this case and consulted dictionaries. See Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1317-18. Here general and technical dictionaries clearly confirm the district court's construction of the disputed term weld to require melting of the parts that are being joined. See Webster's Third New International Dictionary 2594 (2002) (defining weld as to unite or consolidate . . . by heating to a plastic or fluid state the surfaces of the parts to be joined and then allowing the metals to flow together); McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms 2288 (6th ed.2003) (defining welding as [j]oining two metals by applying heat to melt and fuse them); see also D.C. Miles & J.H. Briston, Polymer Technology 651 (Chem. Pub'g Co., 1979) (describing ultrasonic welding as a process where the mechanical energy of motion is transformed into heat which melts the mating surfaces of the plastics). The definition of fuse  terminology used in the specification to describe the welding process  is also consistent with the district court's construction of the term weld. See Webster's at 925 (defining fuse as reduce to a liquid or plastic state by heat: dissolve, melt . . . liquefy). [2] Consequently, we conclude that the district court correctly construed the term welding. The district court granted summary judgment of no literal infringement after it found that [t]here is no dispute that the mesh layer in Amerimax's gutter guard is not attached to the guard panel by `welding' as construed above. L.B. Plastics, 431 F.Supp.2d at 582. Having found that no dispute of material fact existed under the correct claim construction, the district court properly granted summary judgment on the issue of literal infringement.