Liebel-Flarsheim Company, et al. v. Medrad, Inc. (Fed. Cir.)

February 11, 2004 on 2:10 pm | In Caselaw |

Liebel-Flarsheim Company, et al. v. Medrad, Inc.
Federal Circuit
Decided February 11, 2004.

Decision. The trial court granted summary judgment of noninfringement as to all of the claims set forth in Liebel’s complaint. The trial court then dismissed the counterclaims, in which Medrad alleged that the asserted claims of the four patents were invalid. The trial court held that the counterclaims were moot in light of the court’s noninfringement ruling. The Federal Circuit reversed the grant of summary judgment and the dismissal of the counterclaims, and remanded for further proceedings.

Additional insight. Hal Wegner calls this a very important claim construction opinion, noting that the Court discusses and explains some of the seemingly conflicting panel opinions of the past few years, including:
(1) The “Twin Axioms of Claim Construction”
(2) Claims not Limited to Preferred (Single) Embodiment
(3) Id. – Distinguishing (Limiting) SciMed Life Systems
(4) Limiting Claims to Embodiments Achieving Objectives
(5) Claim Differentiation Explained
(6) Limiting Claims to Preserve Validity
(7) Heavy Presumption of Ordinary Meaning
(8) Broadening Claim to Capture Embodiment (Kingsdown)

Copy of the case here.

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