Court Opinion

ID: 9474167
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:49:46.063796+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:56.314893
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join in Part III (including a, b, c thereof) of the court’s opinion (“Validity of *328the ’709 Patent”) determining the invalidity of the challenged claims of the ’709 patent (thus sustaining the district court), as well as joining in Part III, d, reversing the district court’s holding of invalidity of claims 16-23 of the ’709 patent which were not in issue below. I dissent as to the court’s holding (in Part II of its opinion) that the ’339 patent was infringed, and because of my position on that issue of infringement I need not, and do not, reach the issue of the validity of the ’339 patent (discussed by the court in Part I of its opinion).
On infringement of the ’339 patent, my view is that (a) the prosecution history limited claims 1, 18, and 22 to support members which (i) were “rotatably coupled” (rather than simply “secured” or “disposed” as in the original claims) to the end of the balloon and also (ii) ended within the catheter tube itself, not beyond it; and (b) accordingly, there can be here no infringement under the doctrine of equivalents because the accused support means (SMEC’s stylet) is not so “coupled” (instead, freely passing through the balloon and catheter tube), and likewise does not end within the catheter tube but passes freely beyond and outside that tube.
I take this position on prosecution history estoppel because, after the original claims (which did not contain either of these limitations) were repeatedly rejected over the prior art, after those rejections were continued, and after interviews, the applicant introduced these amendments, and they were accepted. The court refuses to apply prosecution history estoppel because there is no showing that those particular amendments were made to overcome a rejection very specifically referring to the application’s predecessor of “coupling” (i.e., “secured” or “disposed”), or to the length of the support member. However, the examiner broadly rejected the original claims “as structurally fully anticipated” by the prior art (emphasis added),1 and the particular amendments with which we are now concerned were made and accepted only after at least two interviews and earlier amendments which were not enough for the examiner. For me, the pertinent amendments were made to obtain allowance by the examiner (who had theretofore persisted in rejection) and therefore the doctrine of equivalents “may not include within its range anything that would vitiate limitations expressed before the Patent Office.” Autogiro Co. of America v. United States, 384 F.2d 391, 400-01 (Ct.C1.1967). This is particularly clear to me with respect to the amendment requiring the support member to terminate within the catheter tube. (The accused device, markedly extends beyond the balloon and the catheter tube, ending in an external knob.) The short of it is that, to me, prosecution history should be appraised realistically — to try to discover what actually happened in the particular instance — not by a priori rigid or mechanical rules. My judgment in this case is that the two amendments in question were made in a successful effort to overcome rejection on the basis of prior art.

. The examiner also said (referring to two prior patents):
"Both patents show the recited structure of the [original] claims" and “Applicant’s remarks have been considered but are not persuasive in view of the broad claim language." These observations seem to refer (inter alia) to at least the initial absence of a length limitation.
As for the “rotatably coupled” amendment, the examiner's final rejection (prior to the "rotatably coupled” amendment) said that the earlier Leininger patent "shows a non-plastic chamber having a support connected at one end thereof inherently capable of rotational movement.” Thereafter, the "rotatably coupled" amendment was made and accepted.