United States Federal Circuit

In an infringement action involving a patent, which underwent ex parte reexamination and to which plaintiff added language to all of the claims at issue, the district court's determination that the amendments made during reexamination resulted in a substantive change in claim scope is affirmed where: 1) the amended claim 1 is not "substantially identical" to original claim 1, 35 U.S.C. section 252, and therefore plaintiff is not entitled to infringement damages prior to issuance of the reexamination certificate for the patent; and 2) since plaintiff concedes defendant did not perform any allegedly infringing conduct after the PTO issued the reexamination certificate, the district court properly dismissed the case.

Appellate Information

• Decided 09/17/2015
• Published 09/17/2015

Judges

• O'MALLEY

Court

• United States Federal Circuit

Counsel