Court Opinion

ID: 9471012
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:23:22.764809+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:14.185973
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting in part.
I agree with the court’s opinion except for the use of the doctrine of equivalents to find infringement of claims 1 and 19. My position is that Caterpillar is precluded by the course of its prosecution of the ’718 patent from claiming anything but literal infringement (with respect to the relative thickness of the hinge and the two flanges) of those two claims — and it is plain there was no literal infringement here.
The prosecution history shows this: The original nine claims of Caterpillar’s application were all rejected on the basis of 35 U.S.C. § 102 and also of 35 U.S.C. § 112. Those rejected claims did not embody the “thick-thin-thick” requirement of patent *1117claims 1 and 19. To avoid the rejection the applicant filed a continuation-in-part application containing new claims 1 and 19-claim 1 setting forth for the first time the language “the driving and sealing flanges being interconnected by a wall section of substantially thinner cross section than that of the flanges,” and claim 19 specifying for the first time that the hinge was a “thin cross section relative to that of the ends * * *.” In his new application, the patentee expressly pointed out to the Patent and Trademark Office that (1) “the thin flexible hinge section in the seal ring of the present invention provides a substantial distinction over the prior art”1 and (2) that the hinge portion of the seal was about O. 040 inches thick as contrasted to 0.100 for the driving flange and 0.130 for the sealing flange. All the 19 claims of the new application were then rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103, but after an unrecorded telephone call (the substance of which is unknown) the Examiner revised the claims (in a now immaterial manner) and the patent issued.
On the basis of the prosecution history, the District Court concluded that “the patent claims were indeed narrowed to overcome objections raised by the Patent Office” and also that Caterpillar “may be es-topped from using the term ‘thin’ as relative to driving and sealing flanges.” He decided, however, to apply the doctrine of equivalents. I think this was error for claims 1 and 19, as to which, in my view, the patentee told the PTO in plain effect that those two claims meant exactly what they said — and no more. “A patentee having argued a narrow construction for his claims before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) should be precluded from arguing a broader construction for the purposes of infringement. * * * [Wjhenever a patentee utilizes the doctrine of equivalents in an infringement suit to extend the scope of his claims, he opens his case to rebuttal based on any statements he made on the record during prosecution.” Coleco Industries, Inc. v. U.S. International Trade Commission, 65 C.C.P.A. 105, 573 F.2d 1247, 1257-58, 197 USPQ 472 (C.C.P.A. 1978, emphasis in original). See also Autogiro Co. v. United States, 181 Ct.Cl. 55, 384 F.2d 391, 400-01, 155 USPQ 697 (Ct.Cl. 1967); Teledyne McCormick Selph v. United States, 214 Ct.Cl. 672, 558 F.2d 1000, 1006-07, 195 USPQ 261 (Ct.Cl.1977). There is nothing to indicate that Caterpillar’s argument to the PTO on the relative thinness of the hinge was unnecessary or superfluous.
Because claim 10, which does not call for the “thick-thin-thick” construction, was literally infringed, I join with the majority on that claim. The existence of claim 10, with its sharp contrast in wording to claims 1 and 19, means to me in the circumstances that the inventor intended those three claims to be interpreted literally. Accordingly, I would affirm as to claim 10 but reverse as to claims 1 and 19.

. Note that the original claims had been rejected under § 102 (as well as § 112). See supra.