Court Opinion

ID: 9946240
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-29 16:03:15.328975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:25:33.160759
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1964     Document: 55   Page: 1     Filed: 02/05/2024

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC,
                    Plaintiff-Appellant

                            v.

      INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC,
                 Defendant-Appellee
               ______________________

                        2022-1964
                  ______________________

    Appeal from the United States District Court for the
 Western District of Arkansas in No. 4:16-cv-04019-BAB,
 Chief Magistrate Judge Barry A. Bryant.
                 ______________________

                 Decided: February 5, 2024
                  ______________________

     GAVIN B. PARSONS, Coats & Bennett, PLLC, Cary, NC,
 argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by DAVID
 E. BENNETT; ROBERT KATZ, Katz PLLC, Dallas, TX.

     MARTIN A. KASTEN, Friday, Eldredge & Clark, LLP, Lit-
 tle Rock, AR, argued for defendant-appellee. Also repre-
 sented by KAEL K. BOWLING, MARSHALL NEY, Rogers, AR.
                  ______________________

  Before STOLL, CUNNINGHAM, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
Case: 22-1964    Document: 55      Page: 2    Filed: 02/05/2024

 2                                   SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.
                           INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC

 STOLL, Circuit Judge.
     Sorrell Holdings, LLC appeals the final judgment of
 the United States District Court for Western District of Ar-
 kansas in favor of Infinity Headwear & Apparel, LLC, find-
 ing noninfringement of Sorrell’s U.S. Patent No. 6,887,007.
 Sorrell challenges the district court’s construction of cer-
 tain claim terms, as well as the court’s grant of attorney’s
 fees and costs to Infinity for a discovery violation. Because
 we conclude that the district court erred in its claim con-
 struction and that the district court did not abuse its dis-
 cretion in awarding attorney’s fees and costs, we affirm-in-
 part, vacate-in-part, and remand.
                         BACKGROUND
     Sorrell’s ’007 patent relates to hand-held washing de-
 vices, or loofahs. As show in patent figure 10 below, the
 washing device contains a “scrubber 20 made of an elon-
 gated mesh material gathered together to form a plurality
 of pleats.” ’007 patent, col. 2 ll. 35–37.

 Id. Fig. 10.
Case: 22-1964     Document: 55     Page: 3    Filed: 02/05/2024

 SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.                                    3
 INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC

     A “cinch 30 extends around and holds the pleats to-
 gether.” Id. at col. 2 ll. 37–38. The scrubber can include a
 handle which could serve as a fluid dispenser 44 and be
 “given an aesthetically pleasing shape.” Id. at col. 3 ll. 27–
 30, col. 5 ll. 17–18.
     Claim 11 is the only claim at issue in this appeal, and
 recites:
     11. A washing device comprising:
         a scrubber made of a foraminous material
         and gathered to form a pleated ball;
         a figurative handle coupled to the scrubber;
         and
         a cinch for binding the foraminous material
         into the pleated ball and forming a loop ex-
         tending around at least a portion of said
         handle to secure the handle to the scrub-
         ber.
 Id. at col. 6 ll. 27–35 (emphases added to highlight dis-
 puted limitations).
      Sorrell filed suit against Infinity, alleging that Infin-
 ity’s MascotWear™ product infringed claim 11 of the ’007
 patent. The district court construed the term “cinch” to
 mean a “string, elastic band, or metal band which does not
 directly contact the user when bathing” and the term “fig-
 urative handle” to mean “a figure, resemblance, or likeness
 which is designed especially to be grasped by the hand.”
 Sorrell Holdings, LLC v. Infinity Headwear & Apparel,
 LLC, No. 4:16-cv-04019, 2018 WL 4356601, at *3–6
 (W.D. Ark. Sept. 12, 2018) (Claim Construction Order).
     A month before trial, in October 2021, Sorrell produced
 various documents it intended to use at trial, including, for
 the first time, the assignment of the ’007 patent to Sorrell.
 Infinity moved to exclude all documents that were not dis-
 closed prior to the April 3, 2020 discovery cutoff deadline.
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 4                                   SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.
                           INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC

 The district court granted the motion. Because the assign-
 ment was not produced prior to the discovery cutoff dead-
 line, Sorrell moved to allow entry of the assignment and
 maintenance fee statements, which the district court de-
 nied. Infinity then filed a motion to dismiss on the ground
 that Sorrell could not prove standing without the assign-
 ment. The district court denied the motion to dismiss and
 instead continued the trial so that Infinity could conduct
 discovery regarding the assignment. The district court also
 granted Infinity’s motion for attorney’s fees and costs asso-
 ciated with the continuance.
     Following trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of
 Infinity, finding noninfringement of the ’007 patent and
 the district court entered judgment accordingly. Sorrell ap-
 peals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).
                         DISCUSSION
     On appeal, Sorrell challenges the district court’s claim
 constructions of the terms “cinch” and “figurative handle”
 and the district court’s grant of attorney fees and costs to
 Infinity. We address each issue in turn.
                               I
     We start by addressing the district court’s claim con-
 structions of the terms “cinch” and “figurative handle.” We
 review a district court’s claim construction based solely on
 intrinsic evidence de novo. See Teva Pharm. USA, Inc.
 v. Sandoz, Inc., 574 U.S. 318, 331 (2015).
     The district court erred by reading in limitations from
 the ’007 patent specification when interpreting the term
 “cinch” to require that it does not directly contact the user.
 We start with the claim language and the claim language
 here does not state that the cinch does “not directly contact
 the user,” as required by the district court’s claim construc-
 tion. See Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312
 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc) (“[T]he claims are ‘of primary im-
 portance, in the effort to ascertain precisely what it is that
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 SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.                                    5
 INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC

 is patented.’” (quoting Merrill v. Yeomans, 94 U.S. 568, 570
 (1876))). As for the district court’s reliance on the specifi-
 cation, we have repeatedly held that courts should not read
 limitations from the specification into the claims. See
 Liebel-Flarsheim Co. v. Medrad, Inc., 358 F.3d 898, 904
 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (“[I]t is improper to read a limitation from
 the specification into the claims.”) (citations omitted); see
 also Teleflex, Inc. v. Ficosa N. Am. Corp., 299 F.3d 1313,
 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (“That claims are interpreted in light
 of the specification does not mean that everything ex-
 pressed in the specification must be read into all the
 claims.”) (citation omitted). While the specification does
 state that the “cinch 30 . . . do[es] not directly contact the
 user when bathing with the device 10 as it may be abrasive
 or otherwise uncomfortable to the user,” ’007 patent, col. 3
 ll. 51–53, this is in a paragraph referring to specific embod-
 iments. See id. col. 3 ll. 28–55 (referencing “another em-
 bodiment,” “[i]n one embodiment,” and “[i]n another
 embodiment”). In our view, a person of ordinary skill in
 the art would understand this statement as describing a
 preferred embodiment and not defining “cinch” or disclaim-
 ing all cinches that do contact the user. See Liebel-
 Flarsheim Co., 358 F.3d at 913 (“[I]t is improper to read
 limitations from a preferred embodiment described in the
 specification—even if it is the only embodiment—into the
 claims absent a clear indication in the intrinsic record that
 the patentee intended the claims to be so limited.”) (cita-
 tions omitted); Bayer AG v. Biovail Corp., 279 F.3d 1340,
 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (“[A] court may not read into a claim
 a limitation from a preferred embodiment, if that limita-
 tion is not present in the claim itself.”). As such, without
 this additional no-contact requirement, a “cinch” should be
 construed as a string, elastic band, metal band, or similar
 fastening device.
     The district court also erred in its construction of the
 term “figurative handle.” Specifically, the court’s construc-
 tion erroneously required that the figurative handle be
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 6                                   SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.
                           INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC

 “designed especially to be grasped by the hand,” which im-
 properly suggested a design intent requirement. Claim
 Construction Order, 2018 WL 4356601, at *4. Direct in-
 fringement has no intent element and for an “accused de-
 vice[] to be infringing, [it] need only be capable of
 operating” in the infringing manner. Intel Corp. v. U.S.
 Int’l Trade Comm’n, 946 F.2d 821, 832 (Fed. Cir. 1991). Ac-
 cordingly, the “figurative handle” should be construed
 without the intent element as a figure, resemblance, or
 likeness which can be grasped by the hand.
     As the trial substantially concerned whether Infinity’s
 accused device satisfied the “cinch” and “figurative handle”
 limitations as construed by the district court, we find both
 claim construction errors prejudicial and thus vacate the
 district court’s judgment of noninfringement and remand
 for further proceedings under the correct claim construc-
 tion.
                              II
     We turn to the district court’s grant of attorney’s fees
 and costs. In reviewing the district court’s discovery rul-
 ings and grant of sanctions, “we are guided by regional cir-
 cuit law.” Drone Techs., Inc. v. Parrot S.A., 838 F.3d 1283,
 1297 (Fed. Cir. 2016). In the Eighth Circuit, discovery rul-
 ings and imposition of sanctions are reviewed for an abuse
 of discretion and relief is granted only “where the errors
 amount to gross abuse of discretion resulting in fundamen-
 tal unfairness.” Vallejo v. Amgen, Inc., 903 F.3d 733, 742
 (8th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted); Greyhound Lines, Inc.
 v. Wade, 485 F.3d 1032, 1035 (8th Cir. 2007).
     We conclude that the district court did not abuse its
 discretion in awarding attorney fees and costs to Infinity
 when Sorrell failed to produce the patent assignment until
 a month before trial. After noting that Sorrell’s nondisclo-
 sure was inadvertent and that Sorrell’s lawyer candidly ad-
 mitted that he did not have an excuse for the failure to
 disclose, the district court delayed trial by sixty days. The
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 SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.                                    7
 INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC

 district court determined that under these circumstances,
 a lesser sanction of “fees and costs associated with [the]
 continuance” would be preferable to excluding the assign-
 ment altogether, which would have resulted in dismissal.
 J.A. 1039. We cannot say that the district court abused its
 discretion by awarding the costs and fees. While it is true
 that the ’007 patent assignment is a public record and the
 record below includes evidence suggesting that Infinity
 knew of the assignment, it is also true that Sorrell did not
 comply with its discovery obligations and the district court
 issued lesser sanctions in light of these facts.
      We also do not view the district court’s mistaken refer-
 ence to production of the assignment just three days prior
 to trial as clear error. Rather, we view this as a stray (al-
 beit incorrect) comment in light of the fact that elsewhere,
 both the court and the parties correctly recognized that the
 assignment was produced a month prior to trial. Thus, we
 affirm the district court’s grant of attorney’s fees and costs
 to Infinity.
                         CONCLUSION
     For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s
 grant of attorney’s fees, vacate the district court’s judgment
 of noninfringement, and remand for proceedings consistent
 with this opinion.
   AFFIRMED-IN-PART, VACATED-IN-PART, AND
                 REMANDED
                            COSTS
 No costs.