Court Opinion

ID: 9481875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 08:34:25.070245+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:48:38.094515
License: Public Domain

RICH, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
As the majority opinion states, this appeal comes to us with two issues, both relating to infringement of the claims in suit, claims 1-3, plus a stipulation which inhibited the trial court from considering validity or so construing the claims as to render them invalid for any reason. The issues, then, are (1) whether a “keyway” limitation must be read into the claims, which do not refer to a keyway, in order to save them from invalidity and (2) whether the claims in suit are not infringed because they must be construed as limited to preformed one-piece corner border pieces which defendants do not use.
The majority rests its decision on issue (2) and therefore does not reach issue (1), agreeing with defendants’ contentions and the district court. On this issue of claim construction, I am constrained to disagree with both the district court and the majority for the following reasons. I do agree that the majority, having reached its decision on issue (2), albeit incorrectly as a matter of claim construction, was justified in not reaching issue (1). Since I would hold to the contrary on issue (2), I would feel obliged to pass on issue (1) and would hold that under long-established precedent too well settled to require citation it is not permissible to read limitations into claims which they clearly do not contain. In sum, I would hold claim 1 infringed, as did the court-appointed expert or “master,” though I would hold it literally infringed. (This assumes that defendants’ assemblies have both comer border pieces (as distinct from “linear” border pieces) and linear border pieces, which I do not know to be the fact.)
Parties cannot, by stipulation, make invalid claims valid nor can they require this or any other court to violate established principles of claim construction. Validity and infringement are unrelated questions. Invalid claims can perfectly well be infringed, which is simply a matter of construing the words of the claim and then determining whether they can be read on the accused structure. Courts constantly hold claims infringed but invalid. Validity vel non should have no effect on how the infringement issue is decided. The district judge did not seem to understand that. The stipulation that the claims must be so construed for infringement purposes as to assure their actual validity is not binding on courts. Parties cannot require courts to decide legal questions, which are reviewable de novo, a certain way. If they wish to settle their cases, they should do just that.
In the present posture of this appeal, the sole question is whether the majority has correctly construed the meaning of a single limitation in claim 1, which claim is set forth in full in its opinion. That limitation is: “right-angle corner border pieces.” I simply disagree with the majority’s conclusions and with its attempted supporting reasoning. We arrive at different “plain meanings.”
I fully agree with the majority’s statement of the law respecting claim construction, a question of law we review de novo. We construe claims in the light of the language of the claim itself, the specification on which it is based, and the whole prosecution history. The majority has not properly done this and, in my judgment, has demonstrably come to a wrong conclusion. Significant statements in the specification and prosecution history are misapplied. I shall begin with the specification.
As the majority states, the specification first describes and illustrates the one-piece corner pieces 15 and 16, outside and inside corners respectively. True, these are the only corner pieces shown in drawings. Then the specification contains the significant statement quoted in the majority opinion from the patent at col. 8, lines 28-41. {My emphasis):
Instead of using preformed right-angle corner pieces of the type previously disclosed, one may improvise comer pieces by miter-cutting the ends of a pair *1566of short linear border pieces placed at right angles to each other and providing a space between the cut ends to define the necessary storage slot. For this purpose, a temporary spacer may be used to provide exactly the right amount of storage space. The advantage of such corner pieces resides in the fact that linear pieces may be mass-produced at low cost by continuous extrusion, whereas preformed corner pieces must be molded or otherwise fabricated by more expensive techniques. On the other hand, a preformed corner piece is somewhat easier for a do-it-yourselfer to work with.
Perhaps this is a matter, on both sides, of seeing what you choose to see. Beyond question, however, the specification discloses two species of right-angle corner border pieces: (1) preformed one-piece and (2) mitered, short, linear pieces, arranged at right angles and properly spaced at their junction. The latter are to be joined to longer linear pieces. No drawing is needed to make (2) clear. In any case, there are always, in a single assembly, both corner pieces and linear pieces, even when the second species of corner is used.
Now I turn to the contents of the file-wrapper. From day one when the application was filed these two kinds of corners were not only described but claimed and we look to this, equally with the specification, to determine the correct construction of the claim 1 language. Original claim 1, as filed, used exactly the same terminology as patent claim 1, “right-angle corner border pieces.” There were 14 original claims on day one. Among them was claim 9, depending from claim 1, reading:
9. An assembly as set forth in claim 1, wherein said right-angle comer pieces are formed by a pair of short linear pieces whose ends are mitered and spaced from each other to define a slot therebetween to receive the pucker of the selvage when the selvage is locked into the keyway. [My emphasis.]
Note that claim 9 is referring back to “right angle” corners as described in claim 1 and is thus defining a species of that genus. Now, what does that tell one skilled in the art about the meaning of “right-angle corner border pieces”? It tells one that the claim 1 phrase is, and was clearly intended by the applicant to be, broad enough to cover the species recited in claim 9, which the majority says it does not cover. There is a genus-species relationship between the phrase in claim 1, which never changed throughout the prosecution, and the particular form of corner piece recited in claim 9.
I have to disagree with the majority’s criticism or downplaying of my use of claim 9 as a construction aid in several particulars. The majority seems to start with an a priori assumption of what the “clear” language of claim 1 means. On the other hand, I am looking at the genealogical record of that claim to find out what it means.
The majority says, “we ... cannot speculate on the reasons for the cancellation” of claim 9 because we have no idea of the content of the ‘phone conversation between the examiner and the attorney which led to cancellation, along with many other claims. I agree. The majority then speculates that it may have been an improper dependent claim, though it is not apparent why and the majority gives no reason. I don’t care why (or whether) claim 9 was cancelled — it was simply part of the original application and sheds a bright light on what claim 1 was intended to mean.
I see no significance to the fact that claim 9 was cancelled because it is part of the prosecution history, all of which is clearly before us. The majority correctly states that we must consider the prosecution history, of which claim 9 is a significant part.
The majority opines that the alternative corner piece described in claim 9 has not been claimed and is therefore dedicated to the public. This strange position begs the question. Of course it has not been claimed specifically. The question, however, is whether it is covered by or included in claim 1, which I say it is. Therefore, its subject matter is not “dedicated to the public.”
*156735 U.S.C. § 112, which requires claims, is irrelevant to a consideration of what claims mean. Since Brown’s so-called “expert”— expert only in the sense he was a patent lawyer — knew no more than the members of this panel, his speculations are of no value to us. The citation of cases is also of no help in finding out what claims mean.
To me, claim 9 is the only evidence of record, except for the specification itself, which is of any value in construing claim 1, and I think it is of great value.
The majority seems to say that my construction of claim 1 “would render meaningless express claim limitation.” I await enlightenment on what those “express limitations” are. I have already said that I read both corner pieces and linear pieces in claim 1. The debate here is over the kinds of corner pieces claim 1 covers. It is clear that it is not limited to unitary or preformed or one-piece corner pieces as shown in the drawings at 15 and 16. That much is truly “clear.”
Much has been made of the contention that using short mitered corner pieces is something that a “do-it-yourselfer” — an “amateur” — is unable to do. Defendants’ expert speculated, with no support whatsoever, that, in his opinion, the examiner required claim 9 to be cancelled because “it was simply not something that a do-it-your-selfer could do.” Both defendants and the district court relied heavily on this testimony. I find this opinion testimony to be wholly incredible. The sole basis given by the expert for his opinion was the fact that claim 9 was cancelled while claim 4 was not. However, there is absolutely nothing in the record showing why the examiner allowed certain claims and cancelled certain other claims.
The fact is that this whole “do-it-yoursel-fer” argument has been blown way out of proportion. The specification does not state that do-it-yourselfers are incapable of using mitered corner pieces; it merely states, as quoted above, that preformed corner pieces are “somewhat easier for a do-it-yourselfer to work with.” Furthermore, the only reference to do-it-yoursel-fers during prosecution is a statement that certain known prior art arrangements are • difficult for a do-it-yourselfer to use because the fabric must be cut precisely to size whereas according to the invention of the ’260 patent, the fabric need merely be cut roughly to size, with the excess fabric being stuffed in the storage channel. This is equally true as to either kind of corner. To infer from this one statement that the claims must be limited to features not recited in the claims (i.e., “preformed” corner pieces) is contrary to established patent law practice.
Let us consider next another lesson about meaning to be learned from the specification. In the quotation above from column 8, in the opening sentence the drafter of the specification exhibits a clear consciousness of the distinction between “preformed right-angle corner pieces” and those made by mitering and placing at right angles two short pieces of linear border pieces. Claim 1 does not contain the limiting word “preformed” yet the majority, without justification, is reading it into the claim in holding that the claim does not cover corner pieces which are made up as clearly described in the specification.
I also point out that the term “right-angle” is not a limitation to preformed unitary pieces since the specification makes clear that the made-up variety of corners are also right-angle corner pieces when assembled.
The majority’s argument based on alleged violation of the “all elements” rule is untenable. It overlooks the fact that the teaching in the specification is clear about making “corner pieces” by using two “short linear border pieces” (my emphasis) and then using such “improvised” corner pieces in conjunction with linear pieces to make the complete wall frame. Of course, it is the all-elements rule on which the defendants rely for non-infringement, arguing that they have no “corner pieces” when in fact they have a type of corner piece which is disclosed and claimed as an element of the combination of claim 1. I am not “merging the two types of claim elements into one” — whatever that may mean. I am simply saying that the ele*1568ment defined in claim 1 as “right-angle corner border pieces” is, as clearly shown by the patent and its prosecution history, a limitation generic to two types of corner pieces disclosed in the patent which is broad enough to read on defendants’ structure because it is clearly not limited to “preformed” or “unitary” corner pieces, as held below and by the majority. That is the sum and substance of my position and it calls for reversal.
The prosecution history contains nothing contradictory to my position and much to support it, as shown above. I have not found any evidence to contradict it or to support the district court opinion which demonstrates a dismal failure to comprehend many patent law fundamentals and accepts, as established fact, opinion statements of defendants’ expert witness unsupported by the record. The reader should also be aware that the district judge made no separate “findings of fact.” He wrote a short, confused opinion which he concluded with the escape clause saying “The foregoing shall constitute the Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law in accordance with Rule 54(b) [sic] of the Fed.R.Civ.P.”