Court Opinion

ID: 9496923
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:39:10.489767+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:57:53.726999
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part, dissenting in part.
I concur in the court’s judgment as to validity and inequitable conduct, but I must, respectfully, dissent as to the decision to remand for further findings and conclusions as to infringement and its consequences. The issues are before us on appeal, and require our decision, not a remand for a longer opinion.
The district court, after a three-day trial, issued “findings of fact and conclusions of law” in the form, Peterson alleges, provided by the plaintiff Golden Blount, in whose favor the court decided. Peterson appealed, and in the section of its brief challenging the district court’s findings of infringement it focused primarily on the court’s claim construction, arguing for a construction under which it alleges it would not infringe.
In its briefs, Peterson does not argue that the district court failed to provide an adequate analysis of infringement, as the panel majority now holds. Nor is there any indication that Peterson raised such an objection before the district court. Of Peterson’s two post-trial motions to amend, of which the court granted one and denied the other, neither asked for greater detail in the findings or conclusions of the district court. In its brief as appellant, Peterson discusses relevant testimony, and refers to Blount’s “Claim Interpretation Chart,” on which the district court’s finding of infringement was based. Peterson asks us to reach a different conclusion *1063from that reached by the district court as to infringement. My colleagues on this panel do not do so — -they instead remand to the district court to make more explicit findings.
The fireplace components at issue here are relatively simple mechanical devices and the disputed claim limitations are straightforward — whether one burner tube is at a “raised level” with respect to another and whether gas ports are directed “away from the fireplace opening.” Each side advocated a claim construction under which it would win the infringement dispute. As is so often the case in trials involving “Markman hearings,” the question of infringement was essentially decided as a matter of claim construction. The claim construction is a matter of law, and is given de novo determination; this is the premise on which the parties argue the appeal.
As the appellant, Peterson bears the burden of convincing us that the district court committed reversible error. Peterson did not challenge the specificity of the district court’s infringement analysis, and did not appeal this aspect. If Peterson can establish that the findings and conclusions are not supported by law or evidence, then reversal is required — not remand for more findings.
The case ■ should be decided, not stia sponte remanded for a longer opinion. Thus I must, respectfully, dissent from the remand decision of my colleagues.