Court Opinion

ID: 9477370
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:21:51.356219+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:45:50.767710
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
I would affirm on the ground that the prosecution history prevents Hi-Life from showing that there was infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.1
When the examiner agreed to amend claim 1 to include a “limitation of low specific gravity material disposed throughout the body of the foam baffle (or wave dampening device)” he expressly added that this limitation “is not taught by the prior art and renders the claims patentable ” (emphasis added). To me this means that that limitation was a sine qua non for allowance of the claims. As such, the limitation is a necessary, integral part of the prosecution history and governs the application of the doctrine of equivalents. It is also plain to me (as it was to the district court) that the alleged infringer’s device does not meet that limitation because the infringer’s sheet was not disposed throughout the baffle (as demanded by the very limitation which the examiner thought made the claims “patentable”). Hi-Life fully accepted this amendment though it had the choice to reject it and to appeal to the Board of Appeals. By accepting that limitation, Hi-Life made it a full, necessary and integral part of the claims.
Accordingly, my view is that the district court correctly held that plaintiff Hi-Life “is estopped by prosecution history estop-pel from interpreting the claims of Patent No. 4,411,033 in a way which would cover defendant’s [ANWMC's] waterbeds.”

. I agree with the majority that the district court correctly determined that AM-NAT’s waterbed mattress did not literally infringe the asserted claims of the '033 patent.