Opinion ID: 787299
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Denial of PMT's Motion for a New Trial

Text: 51 PMT argues that the district court abused its discretion when the court denied its motion for a new trial. According to PMT, the district court adopted the recommended claim constructions of the Special Master at the outset of the trial but then, in authoring its final opinion, modified the adopted constructions in a manner that resulted in a finding of noninfringement. PMT claims that it relied on the district court's early construction of the claims, and consequently presented no evidence on the issue of the doctrine of equivalents. Infineon responds that, contrary to PMT's assertions, the claim constructions were not changed, but rather the interpretations of the individual terms provided by the Special Master were read in the context of the full claims. Furthermore, Infineon continues, even if the claim constructions were changed, nothing precludes a district court from making adjustments as a trial proceeds. ST reiterates Infineon's first argument and adds that, as a result of PMT's position at the Markman hearing that contacting ... directly required physical contact — an issue not resolved by the Special Master — equivalents were very much at issue during the trial, rather than obviated as PMT maintains. As stated, the Fifth Circuit applies an abuse of discretion standard to the review of a district court's grant or denial of a new trial, requiring a clear showing that an abuse occurred. Hidden Oaks v. City of Austin, 138 F.3d 1036, 1049 (5th Cir.1998). The Fifth Circuit has further explained that district courts do not grant new trials unless it is reasonably clear that prejudicial error has crept into the record or that substantial justice has not been done, and the burden of showing harmful error rests on the party seeking the new trial. Sibley, 184 F.3d at 487 (quoting Wright, Miller & Kane, 11 Federal Practice & Procedure § 2803, at 31-33 (3d ed.1973)). Under this standard, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion. 52 Although the Special Master provided recommended claim constructions following the Markman hearing, those recommendations construed only individual terms in the claims. The Special Master's limited construction left substantial ambiguity as to the meaning of the claims as a whole, particularly regarding the contacting ... to form [an] interface limitation. This ambiguity did not go unnoticed by the parties as, following the issuance of the Special Master's report, PMT moved the district court for clarification of the Special Master Report and Infineon and ST responded with objections to the same. 53 On March 22, 2001, the district court held a hearing on the motions. At the hearing, PMT request[ed] clarification on whether an interface encompasses both a 2-D surface and 3-D structures or areas. Tr. of Hearing on Plaintiff's Motion for Clarification and Defendants' Objections to Special Master's Report and Recommendations, at 15 (Mar. 22, 2001). ST, however, explained that it would be helpful if the court could give a brief review of what interface means and how the Master has defined it to understand the notion of contacting to form an interface. Id. at 44. ST also asked the district court to modify the definition of contacting to require physical contact. Id. at 49. Infineon reiterated ST's objections, and further explained that one of [its] objections to the Special Master's report is that it essentially was a list of definitions for five terms that, albeit while in dispute, did not provide the court with actual constructions as a whole. Id. at 57. Specific to the contacting... to form [an] interface limitation, Infineon asserted that if the definition of contacting is read in combination with the explanation of interface as a two-dimensional object, not as a three-dimensional object as [PMT] would suggest, then the claim language specifically calls for contacting two objects to form a third object, which is the interface. Id. at 62. In the order responding to the parties' motions, the district court stated that it adopted the Special Master's report with the following supplementation and modification: 54 The term contacting in independent claim 11 as in contact layer contacting all said first semiconductor regions and said second semiconductor regions ... is defined as permitting or enabling contact. Claim 11 of the Chen patent is drawn generally to a semiconductor power device and covers several embodiments. One set of embodiments (e.g., Fig.4) shows the contact layer touching the first and second semiconductor regions. But another embodiment (see Fig. 8) shows the contact layer being separated from the first and second semiconductor regions by other layer(s). Construing contacting as being restricted to physically touching would improperly read some embodiments into claim 11, and thereby, improperly limit its scope. 55 Claim Construction Order at 1-2. 56 The significance of the hearing and subsequent order are two-fold. First, from the arguments made, it is clear that all parties were aware of the ambiguity that remained in the litigation in connection with the contacting ... to form [an] interface limitation. PMT's argument for a three-dimensional interface can only be understood — and in fact was understood by Infineon — as the recognition of a possibility that the accused devices lacked the two-dimensional interface that might be required when the interpreted terms were read in the context of the full claims. ST's objections expressly identified the ambiguity, and requested clarification. Second, the district court's order addressed only ST's and Infineon's argument that the term contacting required physical contact, omitting any discussion of the ambiguity identified by the parties. 57 Following the hearing and order, therefore, the parties were no closer to having a full claim construction than they would have been had they gone to trial with only the Special Master Report. The district court did not resolve the ambiguity concerning the contacting ... to form [an] interface limitation, but preserved it by adopting the Special Master's recommendations without additional interpretation. We therefore must conclude that, while a construction of the claims as a whole would have been beneficial to the litigants, the district court's failure to provide one rendered impossible the changed claim construction of which PMT complains. To the contrary, there was never a full claim construction provided by the district court prior to its decision, and none was required. See Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F.3d 967, 981 (Fed.Cir.1995) (en banc) (explaining that claim constructions can be announced by the court in framing its charge to the jury, but may also be done in the context of dispositive motions such as those seeking judgment as a matter of law.), aff'd, 517 U.S. 370, 116 S.Ct. 1384, 134 L.Ed.2d 577; Sofamor Danek Group v. DePuy-Motech, 74 F.3d 1216, 1221 (Fed.Cir.1996) ( Markman does not obligate the trial judge to conclusively interpret claims at an early stage in a case.). The terms contacting and interface were construed by the Special Master without construing the claims as a whole, and those constructions were then assembled into full claims and relied on by the district court in concluding that the contacting... to form [an] interface limitation of the claims was not satisfied by either Infineon's CoolMOS or ST's MDMesh products. 2 58 That the claim constructions remained unsettled following the district court's order is demonstrated by the subsequent events at trial. In response to an objection by PMT that Infineon was rearguing an issue decided by the Special Master's claim constructions, the following dialogue took place: 59 Infineon: I would submit, your honor, respectfully, that your affirmation of the Special Master Report should be viewed at most as tentative.... But we have got to be able to put before this court what we believe to be evidence and argument that clearly establish ... that what the Special Master did in this case ... is clearly wrong. 60 Court: Very well. Mr. Shore [counsel for PMT]. 61 PMT: Then what he is doing is asking for extrinsic evidence on Markman which is prohibited under the rules of claim construction. 62 Court: I will allow the question and again address this at the conclusion of the case. 63 (J.A. at 102148). In reversed roles, Infineon later objected that PMT was attempting to reargue claim construction, to which the district court responded I recall Mr. Neuner [counsel for Infineon] saying it was never final until I entered a final judgment, a recollection emphatically seconded by PMT's counsel. (J.A. at 110210). We gather from these discussions that both the parties and the court viewed the claim constructions performed by the Special Master as preliminary, subject to modification by the district court, with each side continuing to press throughout the trial for more favorable interpretations. 64 In addition to acknowledging and availing itself of the unsettled nature of the constructions recommended by the Special Master, PMT made several arguments during trial falling squarely within the ambiguity it now maintains did not exist after the district court's adoption of the Special Master's report. During PMT's examination of Dr. Richard Fair, of one its expert witnesses, counsel for PMT inquired: 65 I want to ask you a little bit about an alternate argument that has been made.... The argument has been made that for the P-columns to contact and form this interface, they have to go all the way down and touch the n + substrate. Are you familiar with that argument? 66 Tr. of Bench Trial, vol. 1, at 106 (Aug. 27, 2001). Upon an affirmative response by Dr. Fair, counsel proceeded to elicit testimony — without objection from ST or Infineon — as to why that interpretation was incorrect. Id. at 107. Finally, later in the proceedings, PMT refused Infineon's request to stipulate that directly contacting meant touching, stating [t]hat's for the court to determine. (J.A. at 104176). 67 As the foregoing excerpts make clear, PMT was aware that the claim constructions for the '275 patent were incomplete and would be finalized by the district court at some later date. PMT continued to argue at trial against constructions unfavorable to its position, including the position that physical contact was required between the first and second semiconductor regions of the CB-layer and the contact layer. PMT's refusal to stipulate to the meaning of directly contacting expressly acknowledged that the district court had not yet resolved whether that phrase required physical contact and consequently, as Infineon points out, a physical touching requirement remained a possibility until the district court construed the claims in full. 68 The situation in this case resembles that present in our decision in Exxon Chemical Patents, Inc. v. Lubrizol Corp., 64 F.3d 1553 (Fed.Cir.1995). In Exxon Chemical, this court reversed a jury finding of infringement after concluding that the district court incorrectly construed the claims of the patent at issue. Id. at 1555. The court did not remand for further proceedings, but instead queried whether, based on the evidence presented at trial, any jury could reasonably have found that Lubrizol's accused products literally infringe the claims of the [patent at issue] as properly construed. Id. at 1559. Concluding that it could not, the court reversed and entered judgment of noninfringement as a matter of law. Id. at 1560. In justifying its action, the court explained: 69 We have emphasized that Exxon's error was in failure of proof as to the claimed amounts, without which it could not prove infringement under Lubrizol's claim meaning. The trial judge did not interpret the claims until all the evidence was in, just before the case was submitted to the jury. Exxon — knowing Lubrizol's defense — knew that it would lose on Lubrizol's claim meaning unless it could show the presence of the claimed ingredients in the claimed amounts in some Lubrizol product. Exxon was free to choose the moment at which it would identify with proof that a Lubrizol product infringed. Thus, Exxon could have argued and sought to prove that ashless dispersant is present in the claimed percentages, along with the other claimed ingredients in their specified amounts, at any time from the moment of creation of Lubrizol's product. Exxon cannot now claim surprise from our variation on Lubrizol's claim meaning and cry foul in not having a second chance to prove what it was free to prove at trial. 70 Id. at 1560-61. 71 Similar to Exxon Chemical, PMT was on notice that Infineon's and ST's argued claim construction required physical contact between the alternating semiconductor regions and the contact layers. The record reveals both an incomplete claim construction containing a significant ambiguity and an awareness by the parties that the limited constructions that did exist were subject to further modification by the district court. Nevertheless, PMT chose not to present evidence on the doctrine of equivalents. While the Claim Construction Order adopting the Special Master Report does appear to favor PMT's preferred claim construction, the bias was apparently not so great as to cause PMT to abandon its arguments against its opponents' claim construction positions at trial. Consequently, PMT cannot now claim surprise at the district court's final resolution of the claims in a manner unfavorable to it, id. at 1561, nor can we say that the district court abused its discretion in denying PMT's motion for a new trial. 72 Having affirmed both the district court's final claim constructions, and its denial of PMT's motion for a new trial, we also affirm its judgment of noninfringement. As a result, we do not reach PMT's remaining arguments. Likewise, we do not reach Infineon's and ST's arguments regarding the invalidity of the '275 patent, as they are premised on a change in claim construction that we do not address. 3 73