Court Opinion

ID: 9370413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-02-13 16:00:40.423512+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:21.162560
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1146    Document: 37    Page: 1   Filed: 02/13/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                  ______________________

                  SOFTBELLYS, INC.,
                      Appellant

                            v.

                         TY INC.,
                         Appellee
                  ______________________

                        2022-1146
                  ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
 Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2020-
 00689.
                  ______________________

                Decided: February 13, 2023
                 ______________________

     MATTHEW TOPIC, Loevy & Loevy, Chicago, IL, argued
 for appellant. Also represented by JAMES LEE LOVSIN,
 McDonnell Boehnen Hulbert & Berghoff LLP, Chicago, IL.

     PHILIP D. SEGREST, JR., Husch Blackwell LLP, Chicago,
 IL, argued for appellee. Also represented by JOHN ARON
 CARNAHAN, NATHAN P. SPORTEL.
                  ______________________

     Before LOURIE, PROST, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.
Case: 22-1146     Document: 37      Page: 2     Filed: 02/13/2023

 2                                   SOFTBELLYS, INC.   v. TY INC.

 PROST, Circuit Judge.
     Softbelly’s, Inc. (“Softbelly’s”) appeals from a final writ-
 ten decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”)
 in an inter partes review (“IPR”) determining all chal-
 lenged claims of Softbelly’s U.S. Patent No. 6,195,831 (“the
 ’831 patent”) unpatentable. We affirm.
                         BACKGROUND
     Ty Inc. (“Ty”) petitioned for IPR of claims 15 and 16 of
 the ’831 patent, which is now expired. Claim 15 depends
 from canceled claim 6 and is exemplary. 1 Those two claims
 together recite:
     6. A three-dimensional doll-like figure for cleaning
     or wiping the surface of a display screen compris-
     ing:
         a plurality of strips of fabric material
         sewed together so as to form a doll-like fig-
         ure body having outer surface portions and
         at least one inner chamber, and wherein at
         least one of said plurality of strips of fabric
         material forms, in part, said inner cham-
         ber, and is composed of an optical grade
         fabric having substantially non-abrasive
         characteristics with regard to display
         screen surfaces; and
         a selected quantity of stuffing material
         within said at least one inner chamber so
         as to provide said doll-like figure with a
         three dimensional shape which is

     1   Claim 16, by virtue of its dependency from canceled
 claim 11, contains language similar to claim 15, and nei-
 ther party has suggested to us any distinction between
 claims 15 and 16 that is relevant to our analysis.
Case: 22-1146       Document: 37   Page: 3   Filed: 02/13/2023

 SOFTBELLYS, INC.   v. TY INC.                             3

        squeezable for providing a pliant cleaning
        tool for wiping a display screen.
    15. The doll-like figure of claim 6 wherein another
    of said strips of fabric material is a nonoptical
    grade fabric material.
 ’831 patent claims 6 & 15 (emphasis added). We refer to
 the language emphasized above (as incorporated into claim
 15) as the “inner-chamber element.”
     During the IPR, a claim-construction dispute emerged
 over the inner-chamber element. Softbelly’s argued that
 the inner-chamber element required an inner chamber
 formed in part by optical-grade fabric and in part by non-
 optical-grade fabric. See J.A. 256. Ty, however, argued
 that nothing in claim 15 required nonoptical-grade fabric
 to form any part of the inner chamber. See J.A. 366–67.
 According to Ty, the claim simply required that a strip of
 optical-grade fabric form, in part, the inner chamber; noth-
 ing prevented the rest of the inner chamber from being
 formed by another strip of optical-grade fabric. See J.A.
 366–67.
     In its final written decision, the Board acknowledged
 this claim-construction dispute but declined to resolve it.
 J.A. 14–16. Instead, it found that prior-art reference Og-
 awa 2 disclosed the inner-chamber element even under
 Softbelly’s construction. In doing so, the Board found that
 Ogawa was “silent” on whether it disclosed an inner cham-
 ber formed in part by a strip of optical-grade fabric and in
 part by a strip of nonoptical-grade fabric. J.A. 16. But,
 after citing our precedent in Kennametal, Inc. v. Ingersoll
 Cutting Tool Co., 780 F.3d 1376, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2015)—for
 the proposition that a reference “can anticipate a claim
 even if it does not expressly spell out all the limitations

    2   Japanese Utility Model Application Publication
 No. H5-51237 (“Ogawa”).
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 4                                 SOFTBELLYS, INC.   v. TY INC.

 arranged or combined as in the claim, if a person of skill in
 the art, reading the reference, would at once envisage the
 claimed arrangement or combination,” J.A. 16 (cleaned
 up)—the Board found that Ogawa nonetheless disclosed
 the inner-chamber element, J.A. 16–19.
     Softbelly’s timely appealed. We have jurisdiction un-
 der 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A).
                         DISCUSSION
     Softbelly’s argues that the Board misapplied Ken-
 nametal to find that Ogawa disclosed the inner-chamber
 element. Softbelly’s acknowledges, however, that for it to
 succeed in disturbing the Board’s unpatentability determi-
 nation, we must also agree with Softbelly’s construction.
 Oral Arg. at 2:05–40. 3 Because we reject that construction,
 we affirm without reaching any other issues.
      Softbelly’s maintains that the inner-chamber element
 requires an inner chamber formed in part by a strip of op-
 tical-grade fabric and in part by a strip of nonoptical-grade
 fabric. We disagree. Although claim 15 introduces a non-
 optical-grade fabric requirement, nothing in the claim re-
 quires a strip of nonoptical-grade fabric to form any part of
 an inner chamber. Rather, as to an inner chamber, all the
 claim requires (as relevant here) is that it be “form[ed], in
 part” by a strip of optical-grade fabric. To be sure, a strip
 of nonoptical-grade fabric has to be part of the “doll-like
 figure.” But nothing in the claim requires that a strip of
 nonoptical-grade fabric form part of an inner chamber spe-
 cifically.
     Softbelly’s nonetheless insists that “in part” must
 mean something less than the whole and that, therefore,
 the inner chamber cannot be formed entirely by optical-

     3   No. 22-1146, https://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.g
 ov/default.aspx?fl=22-1146_02072023.mp3.
Case: 22-1146       Document: 37   Page: 5    Filed: 02/13/2023

 SOFTBELLYS, INC.   v. TY INC.                               5

 grade fabric. Even if we accept (for argument’s sake) Soft-
 belly’s interpretation of “in part,” this argument still fails
 because it doesn’t account for other key claim language. In
 claim 15, it is the claimed strip of optical-grade fabric that
 must form the inner chamber “in part” (i.e., not in whole).
 Nothing, however, prevents yet another strip of optical-
 grade fabric from forming the rest of the inner chamber. In
 such a configuration, the first strip would still form the in-
 ner chamber only “in part.”
     Accordingly, we reject Softbelly’s construction of the in-
 ner-chamber element, which suffices to affirm.
                           CONCLUSION
      We have considered Softbelly’s remaining arguments
 and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we
 affirm.
                           AFFIRMED