Claim Terms Should Be Given Their Plain And Ordinary Meaning When No Lexicography Or Disavowal Exists

In Hill-Rom Services, Inc. v. Stryker Corp., No. 13-1450 (Fed. Cir. June 27, 2014), the Federal Circuit reversed the district court's SJ of noninfringement, finding that it was based on several erroneous claim constructions.

Hill-Rom Services, Inc., Hill-Rom Company, Inc., and Hill-Rom Manufacturing, Inc. (collectively "Hill-Rom") own three patents related to remote hospital bed monitoring—U.S. Patent Nos. 5,699,038 ("the '038 patent"); 6,147,592; and 7,538,659 (collectively "the patents-in-suit"). All three patents-in-suit share a common specification, which discloses hospital beds equipped with sensors that monitor parameters such as the patient's presence and the height of the bed. In the patented system, an interface board processes the monitored signals to create bed condition messages, and sends the bed condition messages over a datalink to a remote location. In some cases, the messages may also include message validation information.

Hill-Rom brought suit against Stryker Corporation and Stryker Sales Corporation (collectively "Stryker") for infringing the patents-in-suit. The parties stipulated to noninfringement based on the district court's construction of four claim terms—"datalink," "interface board including a processor," "message validation information," and "bed condition message." Hill-Rom appealed the SJ of noninfringement.

"There are no magic words that must be used, but to deviate from the plain and ordinary meaning of a claim term to one of skill in the art, the patentee must, with some language, indicate a clear intent to do so in the patent. And there is no such language here." Slip op. at 7. [S]tatements made during prosecution of a later, unrelated patent cannot form the basis for judicial estoppel." Id. at 22.

On appeal, the Federal Circuit held that the district court's judgment was premised on erroneous claim constructions. First, the Court found that the district court's construction of "datalink""a cable connected to the bed that carries data"was overly narrow because it did not include wireless datalinks. Slip op. at 4 (quoting Hill-Rom Servs., Inc. v. Stryker Corp., No. 1:11-CV-1120, 2013 WL 364568, at *8 (S.D. Ind. Jan. 30, 2013)). The Court found that references to "datalink 39," "serial datalink 39," and "cable 39" in the specification did not limit the "datalink" to a cable because those terms were used when referring to the preferred embodiment, and never when referring to the invention as a whole. Id. at...