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Intellectual Property Keyed to Merges
Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., Ltd.
Facts
Festo Corporation (Plaintiff) owned two patents for an industrial device. When the patent examiner rejected the initial application for the first patent because of defects in description, the application was amended to add the new limitations that the device would contain a pair of one-way sealing rings and that its outer sleeve would be made of a magnetizable material. The second patent was also amended during a reexamination proceeding to add the sealing rings limitation. After Festo (Plaintiff) began selling its device, Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., Ltd. (Defendant) entered the market with a similar device that uses one two-way sealing ring and a nonmagnetizable sleeve. Plaintiff filed suit, claiming that Defendant’s device was so similar that it infringed Plaintiff’s patents under the doctrine of equivalents. The district court ruled for Plaintiff, rejecting Defendant’s argument that the prosecution history estopped Plaintiff from saying that Defendant’s device was equivalent. The en banc federal circuit, reversing, held that prosecution history estoppel applied, noting that estoppel arises from any amendment that narrows a claim to comply with the Patent Act, not only from amendments made to avoid the prior art, as the district court had originally held. The federal circuit also held that, when estoppel applies, it bars any claim of equivalence for the element that was amended. Plaintiff appealed.
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