Phillips v. AWH Corporation

Facts

Plaintiff invented, and obtained a patent on, modular, steel-shell panels that could be welded together to form walls resistant to vandalism. Plaintiff sued Defendant for patent infringement. Claim 1 of his patent (the '798 patent) stated: "further means disposed inside the shell for increasing its load bearing capacity comprising internal steel baffles extending inwardly from the steel shell walls." The district court found that the accused infringing product did not contain "baffles" as that term was used in Claim 1, and therefore, granted summary judgment of noninfringement. On appeal, the original court of appeals panel concluded that the term "baffles" was used in a restrictive manner in the patent which excluded structures that extend at a 90-degree angle from the walls. That panel noted that the specification repeatedly referred to the ability of the claimed baffles to deflect projectiles and that it described the baffles as being "disposed at such angles that bullets which might penetrate the outer steel panels are deflected." The panel also noted that nowhere did the patent disclose a right-angle baffle, and that baffles angled at 90 degrees to the wall were found in the prior art. The panel added that the patent specification "is intended to support and inform the claims, and here it makes it unmistakably clear that the invention involves baffles angled at other than 90 [degrees]." The dissenting judge argued that the panel had improperly limited the claims to the specific embodiment of the invention disclosed in the specification, rather than adopting the "plain meaning" of the term "baffles." The court of appeals agreed to rehear the appeal en banc.