The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit recently upheld a district court’s grant of summary judgment of non-infringement in favor of the maker of Rollerblade in-line roller skates under a claim construction arrived at, in part, by looking at how terms were used in patents cited to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office during prosecution. V-Formation, Inc. v. Benetton Group SpA, Case No. 03-1408 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 15, 2005) (Rader, J.).
V-Formation’s patent claimed a structure for "releasably attaching" the sidewalls of the wheel enclosure of an in-line roller skate. V-Formation claimed that Benetton’s skates (which use rivets to secure the sidewalls) infringed its claims.
The district court granted Benetton’s motion for summary judgment, holding the rivets in the accused devices do not meet the "releasably attaching" limitation. In affirming, the Federal Circuit held that the district court correctly construed that claim term after reviewing the patent specification and the intrinsic evidence, including prior art cited as a reference in the patent, disclosed in an information disclosure statement (IDS) or cited in the prosecution history of the patent. Here, a prior art patent explained that toe and heel plates may be "permanently attached . . . through the use of rivets or releasably attached through the use of fasteners such as screws or bolts." Relying on this language "to set the context for its claim construction," the Court agreed that the intrinsic evidence "provides evidence that rivets are considered by persons of ordinary skill to be permanent fasteners" and are, therefore, properly excluded from the scope of a claim limited to structures for "releasably attaching."
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