{"id":1349,"date":"2016-12-12T12:53:23","date_gmt":"2016-12-12T17:53:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1349"},"modified":"2016-12-14T09:04:15","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T14:04:15","slug":"vitiation-has-not-be-vitiated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1349","title":{"rendered":"Vitiation has not be Vitiated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In\u00a0<em>Power Integrations, Inc., v. Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc,<\/em> [2015-1329, 2015-1388] (December 12, 2016), a complicated action where each party claimed the other directly and indirectly infringed its patents, \u00a0the Federal Circuit: <em><strong>affirmed<\/strong><\/em> the jury\u2019s verdict that the asserted claims of the\u00a0\u2019876 patent were not anticipated; \u00a0<em><strong>vacated<\/strong><\/em> the jury\u2019s verdict that Fairchild induced infringement of the\u00a0asserted claims of the \u2019876 and \u2019851 patents; <em><strong>reversed<\/strong><\/em> the jury\u2019s verdict that the asserted claims of the\u00a0\u2019605 patent were not anticipated; and <em><strong>affirmed<\/strong><\/em> the district court\u2019s construction of the \u2019972 patent.<\/p>\n<p>An interesting aspect of the case was the use of vitiation to find no infringement under the doctrine of equivalents. \u00a0The Federal Circuit addressed Power Integrations\u2019\u00a0claim vitiation argument, noting that under claim vitiation, \u201cif\u00a0a court determines that a finding of infringement under\u00a0the doctrine of equivalents would entirely vitiate a particular\u00a0claimed element, then the court should rule that\u00a0there is no infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.\u201d citing\u00a0<em>Lockheed Martin Corp. v. Space Systems\/ Loral,\u00a0<\/em><em>Inc.<\/em>, 324 F.3d 1308, 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2003). \u00a0The Federal Circuit also quoted from\u00a0<em>Warner-Jenkinson Co., Inc. v. Hilton Davis Chem. Co.:<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>if a theory of equivalence would\u00a0entirely vitiate a particular claim element, partial or<\/p>\n<p>complete judgment should be rendered by the court.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Federal Circuit agreed with Power Integrations that a finding of infringement\u00a0under the doctrine of equivalents would\u00a0vitiate the requirement that the claimed feedback signals\u00a0be \u201cdistinct.\u201d The Federal Circuit explained that the inventor of the \u2019972 patent detailed at\u00a0trial the difficulty in designing a\u00a0power supply with accurate primary-side control and the\u00a0breakthrough he achieved by adding a second feedback signal specifically related to output current. The inventor went on to testify that having a second feedback signal\u2014related to current\u2014that is distinct\u00a0from the first feedback signal\u2014related to voltage\u2014is\u00a0what distinguished the claimed invention from the prior\u00a0art.<\/p>\n<p>Under these circumstances, allowing the doctrine of equivalents to read out the claim requirement for a second feedback signal in order to cover a system with a single feedback signal would impermissibly vitiate the claim element.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In\u00a0Power Integrations, Inc., v. Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc, [2015-1329, 2015-1388] (December 12, 2016), a complicated action where each party claimed the other directly and indirectly infringed its patents, \u00a0the Federal Circuit: affirmed the jury\u2019s verdict that the asserted claims of &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=1349\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/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":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctrine-of-equivalents"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349","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=1349"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1350,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1349\/revisions\/1350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}