Corning Incorporated v. Wilson Wolf Manufacturing Corporation
- Donovan Frank
- 0:20-cv-00700
- U.S. District Court · District of Minnesota
- 28
In Corning Incorporated v. Wilson Wolf Manufacturing Corporation, Judge Frank construed disputed patent terms governing cell-culture technologies without deciding infringement or validity.
Corning Incorporated, Wilson Wolf Manufacturing Corporation, and John R. Wilson; the order establishes the meanings of disputed terms in the three patents at issue.
What happened
Corning Incorporated sued Wilson Wolf Manufacturing Corporation and John R. Wilson in a dispute involving three patents for gas-permeable cell-culture devices and methods. The opinion addressed how certain patent terms should be understood before deciding the parties’ broader claims concerning infringement, validity, and enforceability.
For the ’192 Patent, the court defined “media height” as the continuous height of medium above the surface where cells reside, and defined “semi-permeable membrane,” “static cell culture device,” and “ambient gas.” For the ’443 Patent, it defined “scaffold” but found that “inoculation position” needed no special definition. For the ’317 Patent, it defined “static cell growth apparatus” and “ambient gas,” while finding that “liquid impermeable housing” needed no special definition.
Judge Frank ordered that the disputed patent claims be understood according to those constructions. The opinion did not decide whether the accused product infringed the patents or whether the patents were valid or enforceable.
The detailed version
- Corning Incorporated v. Wilson Wolf Manufacturing Corporation · No. 0:20-cv-00700
- Donovan Frank
- May 27, 2022
Background
This was a patent claim-construction proceeding under Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc. Claim construction is the court’s interpretation of the patent terms that define the scope of the claims. The dispute involved the ’192, ’443, and ’317 Patents, which concern cell-culture devices and methods using gas-permeable materials.
Corning sought, among other things, declarations that its HYPERStack product had not infringed valid and enforceable claims of the patents-in-suit. The opinion addressed the meaning of disputed claim terms; it did not resolve the listed claims for infringement, invalidity, unenforceability, or the other causes of action.
Claim-construction standards
The court explained that claim construction is a question of law for the court. It considered the claim language, the patent specifications, and the patent-prosecution history. The court also noted that it may consider outside evidence, but such evidence is generally less reliable than the patent’s intrinsic evidence. The court may not add limitations from the specification to the claims, although a patent’s clear definition or disclaimer can control the meaning of a term.
’192 Patent
The court construed the disputed media-height limitations to mean “the continuous height of medium residing above the surface where the cells reside for culturing.” The court concluded that the patent’s asserted benefit was allowing more continuous medium to remain above the cells. It rejected using a manifold as the reference point for measuring the claimed medium height because the patent claims and specification did not support that approach.
The court construed “semi-permeable membrane” as “a membrane that allows the passage of certain molecules but prevents the passage of other molecules.” It held that this ordinary meaning could include gas-permeable membranes and found that Wilson Wolf had not shown that the inventors clearly gave the term a narrower meaning.
The court construed “static cell culture device” as “cell culture device that is capable of functioning in a static mode.” It reasoned that the device need not be incapable of using mixing or perfusion equipment; the claims instead required operation in a static state in the circumstances specified by the claims.
The court construed “ambient gas” as “gas of the environment surrounding and external to the apparatus.”
’443 Patent
The court construed “scaffold” as “a platform for cells to reside upon that is separate from the gas-permeable material.” It concluded that the patent treated the scaffolds and gas-permeable material as distinct structures.
The court declined to give “inoculation position” a special construction. It found that a juror could understand the term from the claim language and held that the claim steps were not required to occur in a particular order.
’317 Patent
The court construed “static cell growth apparatus” as “a cell growth apparatus that is capable of functioning in a static mode.” It found that the patent described a static device as one that could function without equipment to perfuse the medium and that the term did not require the absence of mixing equipment.
The court declined to construe “a liquid impermeable housing,” finding that it was a nontechnical term that a juror could understand in the context of the claim language.
The court construed “ambient gas” in the ’317 Patent the same way as in the ’192 Patent: “gas of the environment surrounding and external to the apparatus.”
Disposition
Judge Donovan W. Frank ordered that the disputed claims be construed as set forth in the memorandum opinion and order. The opinion does not state a ruling on infringement, patent validity, patent enforceability, or the remaining claims.
Read the full 28-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.