{"id":1284,"date":"2016-10-13T22:57:49","date_gmt":"2016-10-14T02:57:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1284"},"modified":"2016-10-15T11:14:33","modified_gmt":"2016-10-15T15:14:33","slug":"no-disclaimer-found-when-statements-are-viewed-in-context-of-claims-pending-at-the-time-they-were-made","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1284","title":{"rendered":"No Disclaimer Found When Statements are Viewed in Context of Claims Pending at the Time They were Made"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Massachusetts Institute of Technology v. Shire Pharmaceuticals, Inc.<\/em>, [2015-1881]<\/a> (October 13, 2016), the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s construction of \u201cvascularized organ tissue\u201d and\u00a0\u201ccells derived from a vascularized tissue\u201d and its determination that the\u00a0term \u201cthree-dimensional scaffold\u201d was not\u00a0indefinite, and thus the parties stipulated to a final judgment of\u00a0validity and infringement stands.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit said that the doctrine of prosecution disclaimer precludes patentees from recapturing through claim interpretation specific meanings disclaimed during prosecution. In\u00a0order for prosecution disclaimer to attach, the disavowal must be both clear and unmistakable. \u00a0Where the alleged disavowal is ambiguous, or even amenable to multiple reasonable interpretations, the Federal Circuit said that it has declined to find prosecution disclaimer.<\/p>\n

On the first term, \u201cvascularized organ tissue,\u201d the district court determined that there was no clear and unmistakable disclaimer that would exclude skin from the term\u2019s ordinary meaning, and construed the term \u201cvascularized organ tissue\u201d as \u201cvascularized tissue from an organ,\u201d reasoning that because \u201cthe dermal layer of skin contains blood vessels, this term encompasses skin,\u201d and the Federal Circuit agreed. The Federal Circuit analyzed the statements identified by Shire in the context of the claims pending at the time they were made. \u00a0Federal Circuit determined that a skilled artisan, reading the prosecution history as a whole, would conclude that MIT\u2019s invention does in fact cover vascularized skin.<\/p>\n

The Federal Circuit also agreed with the district court\u2019s construction of \u201ccells derived from a vascularized tissue\u201d to include both parenchymal and non-parenchymal cells, noting that the claims themselves do not make a distinction. \u00a0After reading the full prosecution history in light of the then-pending claim language, the Federal Circuit\u00a0concluded that a\u00a0skilled artisan would not read MIT\u2019s statements made during prosecution \u2014 and directed to very different claim language \u2014 as limiting the term \u201ccells derived from a vascularized tissue\u201d to parenchymal cells.<\/p>\n

Lastly with respect to the district court\u2019s determination that the term \u201cthree-dimensional scaffold\u201d is not indefinite, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s claim construction and validity determination. \u00a0While Shire asserted\u00a0that there was no definition of “three-dimensional,” the district court\u00a0construed the term \u201cthree dimensional\u201d according to its accepted, ordinary meaning, as confirmed by dictionary definitions. Shire complained that these were current, non-technical dictionaries, but the Federal Circuit pointed out that Shire failed to show\u00a0how technical dictionaries or dictionaries contemporaneous to the patents\u2019 filing date would define the term any differently, and in fact the definitions were consistent with Shires own experts.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Massachusetts Institute of Technology v. Shire Pharmaceuticals, Inc., [2015-1881] (October 13, 2016), the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s construction of \u201cvascularized organ tissue\u201d and\u00a0\u201ccells derived from a vascularized tissue\u201d and its determination that the\u00a0term \u201cthree-dimensional scaffold\u201d was not\u00a0indefinite, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-claim-constructino","category-indefiniteness"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1284"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1286,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1284\/revisions\/1286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}