Court Opinion

ID: 9386384
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-04-12 15:01:09.695549+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:06.155111
License: Public Domain

Case: 22-1450   Document: 39     Page: 1   Filed: 04/12/2023

        NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

   United States Court of Appeals
       for the Federal Circuit
                 ______________________

                BLUECATBIO MA INC.,
                     Appellant

                            v.

    YANTAI AUSBIO LABORATORIES CO., LTD.,
                    Appellee
             ______________________

                       2022-1450
                 ______________________

     Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
 Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. PGR2020-
 00051.
                  ______________________

                 Decided: April 12, 2023
                 ______________________

     MICHAEL N. RADER, Wolf Greenfield & Sacks, PC, New
 York, NY, argued for appellant. Also represented by EMMA
 L. FRANK, NATHAN R. SPEED, Boston, MA.

    JASON MITCHELL SHAPIRO, Devlin Law Firm LLC, Wil-
 mington, DE, argued for appellee. Also represented by
 MARK JAMES DEBOY, Edell Shapiro and Finnan,
 Gaithersburg, MD.
                ______________________
Case: 22-1450     Document: 39      Page: 2     Filed: 04/12/2023

 2                                      BLUECATBIO MA INC. v.
                         YANTAI AUSBIO LABORATORIES CO., LTD.

     Before LOURIE, TARANTO, and STARK, Circuit Judges.
 LOURIE, Circuit Judge.
     BlueCatBio MA Inc. (“BlueCat”) appeals from a final
 written decision of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
 Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) holding that
 claims 1, 3−5, 7, 10−12, and 14−20 of U.S. Patent
 10,338,063 had not been shown to have been unpatentable
 as anticipated or rendered obvious in view of the asserted
 prior art. BlueCatBio MA Inc. v. Yantai AusBio Lab’ys Co.,
 No. PGR2020-00051, 2021 WL 6338298 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 9,
 2021) (“Decision”). For the following reasons, we affirm.
                         BACKGROUND
      This appeal pertains to a post-grant review (“PGR”) in
 which BlueCat filed a petition challenging various claims
 of the ’063 patent directed to a centrifuge for cleaning reac-
 tion vessels. Representative claim 1 is presented below:
        1. A centrifuge for cleaning a reaction vessel
        unit that includes at least one opening, com-
        prising:
        a housing including a cylindrical inner sur-
        face and a drain;
        a rotor disposed within the housing and in-
        cluding an outmost surface, the rotor being
        configured to hold the reaction vessel unit
        with its at least one opening directed out-
        wardly;
        a motor for rotating the rotor around a rota-
        tion axis in a first rotational direction to cause
        liquid from the reaction vessel to be expelled
        from the at least one opening onto the inner
        surface of the housing;
        wherein a gap is provided between the inner
        surface of the housing and the outmost
Case: 22-1450     Document: 39     Page: 3    Filed: 04/12/2023

 BLUECATBIO MA INC. v.                                        3
 YANTAI AUSBIO LABORATORIES CO., LTD.

       surface of the rotor, a size of the gap being
       such that by rotating the rotor a wind is gen-
       erated which drives the expelled liquid on the
       inner surface of the housing to the drain; and
       wherein a size of the gap is not less than 0.3
       mm.
 ’063 patent, col. 23 l. 64–col. 24 l. 14 (emphasis added).
     Independent claim 12 recites a method of cleaning a re-
 action vessel with a centrifuge similar to that recited in
 claim 1, wherein a generated wind drives the expelled liq-
 uid on the inner housing surface to the drain. Id. col. 24 l.
 60–col. 25 l. 12.
      BlueCat petitioned for PGR, raising grounds of invalid-
 ity under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103 in view of the public use
 of a centrifuge known as the GyroWasher. Like the
 claimed centrifuge, the GyroWasher comprises a rotor that
 generates a wind that can drive at least some liquid off the
 inner housing surface to a drain. The Board concluded,
 however, that BlueCat had not met its burden to establish
 unpatentability of the challenged claims because it had not
 shown that the GyroWasher’s wind drove all or nearly all
 of the liquid on the inner housing surface to the drain. De-
 cision at *21–22.
    BlueCat appealed.        We have jurisdiction under
 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A) and 35 U.S.C. § 141(c).
                         DISCUSSION
     We review the Board’s legal determinations de novo, In
 re Elsner, 381 F.3d 1125, 1127 (Fed. Cir. 2004), and the
 Board’s factual findings for substantial evidence, In re
 Gartside, 203 F.3d 1305, 1316 (Fed. Cir. 2000). A finding
 is supported by substantial evidence if a reasonable mind
 might accept the evidence as adequate to support the find-
 ing. Consol. Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U.S. 197, 229 (1938).
     BlueCat raises one issue on appeal: whether the Board
Case: 22-1450     Document: 39      Page: 4    Filed: 04/12/2023

 4                                      BLUECATBIO MA INC. v.
                         YANTAI AUSBIO LABORATORIES CO., LTD.

 erred in construing “the expelled liquid on the inner sur-
 face of the housing” to mean “all or nearly all of the liquid”
 on the housing’s inner surface. Claim construction is a
 question of law that we review de novo. Cybor Corp. v. FAS
 Techs., Inc., 138 F.3d 1448, 1454 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (en banc).
 “It is a ‘bedrock principle’ of patent law that ‘the claims of
 a patent define the invention[,] which the patentee is enti-
 tled . . . to exclude.’” Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303,
 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (quoting Innova/Pure Water, Inc. v.
 Safari Water Filtration Sys., Inc., 381 F.3d 1111, 1115
 (Fed. Cir. 2004)); see also Vitronics Corp. v. Conceptronic,
 Inc., 90 F.3d 1576, 1582 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (“[W]e look to the
 words of the claims themselves . . . to define the scope of
 the patented invention.”).
      We begin with the language of the claims. The parties
 agree that “the expelled liquid on the inner surface of the
 housing” driven to the drain refers to a claim limitation
 that recites that rotating the rotor causes “liquid from the
 reaction vessel to be expelled . . . onto the inner surface of
 the housing.” Given that the claim language does not ex-
 pressly contemplate that the wind drive merely a portion
 of “the expelled liquid” off the inner housing surface to the
 drain, we find that the claims support a construction that
 includes the wind driving all of the expelled liquid from the
 inner housing surface to the drain. The parties do not seem
 to disagree on this particular point. Some dependent
 claims, however, describe liquid that may remain on the
 inner housing following the initial wind generation step.
 The claims thus encompass situations in which liquid re-
 mains on the inner housing following wind generation. The
 question becomes: how much liquid may remain?
      Dependent claims 7 and 17 contemplate “a liquid film”
 or “a liquid” that the parties agreed is “residual liquid,” De-
 cision at *7, which remains on the inner housing, to the
 rear of the drain. Notably, these dependent claims suggest
 only that there is residual liquid or a liquid film near the
 drain. They do not indicate that there is any liquid that
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 BLUECATBIO MA INC. v.                                       5
 YANTAI AUSBIO LABORATORIES CO., LTD.

 remains splattered across the whole of the inner housing
 surface. Rather, leaving behind a “liquid film” or “residual
 liquid” near the drain suggests that nearly all of the liquid
 has otherwise been driven off the inner housing. Thus, in
 view of the language of the claims themselves, we agree
 with the Board’s conclusion that “all or nearly all of the ex-
 pelled liquid on the inner surface of the housing” is an ap-
 propriate construction of “the expelled liquid on the inner
 surface of the housing” that is driven to the drain by the
 wind.
     BlueCat suggests that such a claim construction im-
 properly imports a very high level of wind-efficacy from a
 preferred embodiment. We disagree, as this claim con-
 struction arises from the claim language itself. That it is
 consistent with an embodiment or other disclosures in the
 specification does not mean it improperly imports limita-
 tions from the specification. Rather, it indicates that the
 construction is correct. See Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1316 (“The
 construction that stays true to the claim language and
 most naturally aligns with the patent’s description of the
 invention will be, in the end, the correct construction.”).
     Indeed, the specification confirms that even if any “re-
 sidual liquid remain[s] in the housing,” the “main part” of
 the liquid will not only be off the housing but down the
 drain. See ’063 patent, col. 3 ll. 41−45. This is consistent
 with requiring that all or nearly all of the expelled liquid
 be driven off the inner housing to the drain. The specifica-
 tion also makes repeated mention of removing liquid from
 the inner housing to avoid cross-contamination between re-
 action vessels. See id. col. 3 ll. 43−45 (removing the “main
 part” of the expelled liquid “decreases the risk of any cross-
 contamination enormously”); id. col. 3 ll. 58−66 (describing
 “withdraw[ing] completely all liquid . . . from the interior
 of the housing,” how “[t]his fluid is regarded as contami-
 nating material,” and how “[a]s this contaminating mate-
 rial can be completely [] withdrawn, there is no danger of
 contamination”). Each of these disclosures naturally aligns
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 6                                     BLUECATBIO MA INC. v.
                        YANTAI AUSBIO LABORATORIES CO., LTD.

 with the adopted “all or nearly all” construction.
     BlueCat contends that the “all or nearly all” construc-
 tion is indefinite. However, this constitutes a substantial
 new argument on appeal. BlueCat’s contentions regarding
 indefiniteness were thus forfeited. See Microsoft Corp. v.
 Biscotti, Inc., 878 F.3d 1052, 1074–75 (Fed. Cir. 2017).
      The Board’s finding that the GyroWasher does not
 demonstrate wind driving all or nearly all of the liquid ex-
 pelled on the inner surface of the housing is a fact finding
 that we review for substantial evidence. Gartside, 203 F.3d
 at 1316. The Board evaluated testimony from both expert
 and fact witnesses, as well as experimental results and vid-
 eographic evidence to determine that the GyroWasher did
 not produce a wind that drove a sufficient amount of ex-
 pelled liquid on the inner housing surface to the drain to
 render the challenged claims invalid. In particular, the
 Board looked to evidence that showed a notable amount of
 liquid remaining on the GyroWasher’s inner housing sur-
 face following centrifugation, as well as an experiment
 demonstrating that as much as 27% of liquid expelled from
 a reaction vessel did not make it into the GyroWasher’s
 drain following centrifugation. Decision at *15–17, *19–20.
 We find the Board’s conclusion that BlueCat failed to es-
 tablish that the wind generated by the GyroWasher drove
 all or nearly all of the expelled liquid on the inner housing
 surface to the drain was supported by substantial evidence.
                        CONCLUSION
     We have considered BlueCat’s remaining arguments
 and do not find them persuasive. For the foregoing rea-
 sons, we affirm the Board’s final written decision holding
 that claims 1, 3–5, 7, 10–12, and 14–20 of the ’063 patent
 were not shown to have been unpatentable in view of the
 asserted prior art.
                        AFFIRMED