SCIMED LIFE SYSTEMS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ADVANCED CARDIOVASCULAR SYSTEMS, INC., Defendant-Appellee., 242 F.3d 1337

Summary

The district court construed plaintiff's patent claims to be limited to catheters with coaxial lumens. Thus defendant's catheters with dual lumens did not literally infringe plaintiff's patent, and did not infringe the patents under the doctrine of equivalents. Plaintiff argued that the district court improperly read the limitation into the claims from the written description, where the claims themselves contained no such limitation. The appellate court held that the district court properly examined plaintiff's specification and properly determined that plaintiff limited the scope of its claims to coaxial lumens. The abstract, written description, invention summary, and the specification language of each of the patents clearly defined plaintiff's invention in a manner which excluded defendant's dual lumen arrangement, and was expressly made applicable to all embodiments. Further, plaintiff specifically identified, criticized, and disclaimed the dual lumen configuration, and the ...