2,293,106 / 2,485,813 / 2,411,964 / 2,350,264
As noted in my post on Roy J’s trial decision, in the late 1990s, Bombardier Recreational Products (BRP) made a “significant breakthrough” in snowmobile design [FC 415]. Its so-called radical evolution vehicle (REV), introduced in 2002, moved the rider weight forward, so that instead of sitting back as if on a couch, the rider is balanced forward, as if riding a dirt bike [FC 414]. BRP obtained four patents related to its new design. The three Rider Position Patents (106, 813 and 964), claimed a snowmobile with a rider forward position; the 264 patent, aka the Frame Construction Patent, claimed a new frame design with enhanced rigidity [FC 100]. At trial, Roy J held the 264 patent was not infringed. The FCA has now reversed on this point, and returned the matter to Roy J for determination of the outstanding issues relating to the 264 patent, namely validity and remedies [57]. The FCA affirmed Roy J’s holding that the Rider Position Patents were invalid for insufficiency.
Frame Construction Patent / 264 patent
The 264 patent claimed a pyramidal frame assembly with “a frame including a tunnel and an engine cradle forward of the tunnel” [19]. The key question was the meaning of the term “engine cradle”. Roy J held that this meant a cradle with walls, which plays a role in enhancing the rigidity of the vehicle [FC 348, 350, 372, 377, 380, 382] [50], and so excluded the defendant’s snowmobiles, in which the engine cradle was not walled [FC 378-79]. The FCA reversed on this point, essentially on the ground that Roy J had wrongly used the description of the preferred embodiment to limit the claims: the FCA noted that the Roy J’s comments “appear to ignore the basic principle that the description of the preferred embodiments is not meant to include all the possible embodiments of the invention claimed”: [54], and see generally [40]-[55]. This holding did not involve new law. As the FCA noted, it is well-established that the description of the preferred embodiments does not exhaust the invention claimed: [41] (quoting Whirlpool 2000 SCC 67 [54]), [47]. It is possible to have a definition in the disclosure which would limit the ordinary meaning of a term of art, but that was not the case here [43].
On a preliminary point, the FCA also emphasized that claim construction, including purposive construction, is objective:
[23] although purposive interpretation can be viewed as an attempt to determine the
intention of the inventor, one does not seek to establish the subjective intention of the
inventor. Rather, one must seek to determine the objective intention as it was expressed
in the patent itself, and as would be understood by the person to whom it is addressed.
(See to the same effect, Kirin-Amgen [2004] UKHL 46, [32], noting “[t]here is no window into the mind of the patentee,” and "[c]onstruction is objective in the sense that it is concerned with what a reasonable person to whom the utterance was addressed would have understood the author to be using the words to mean.") Thus, evidence of the inventor’s subjective intent, such as whether inventor considered a particular claim element to be important, is irrelevant [22].
Further, reference to other extrinsic evidence, such as other patents or patent applications, is also “inappropriate and cannot inform the construction of the claims” [51]:
[24] Thus, apart from the specification itself, the only evidence that should be considered
to inform a court’s analysis of a claim is proper evidence as to how the POSITA would
understand it in light of his or her relevant common general knowledge in the context of
the specification as a whole.
Rider Position Patents
As noted, at trial Roy J had held the disclosure of how to make the invention in the Rider Position Patents (which shared the same description), to be insufficient. I had interpreted Roy J’s decision as turning on the view, based on Teva v Pfizer [Viagra] 2012 SCC 60, that the specification would be insufficient if even a “minor research project” were required to put the invention into practice. I noted that this view was an error of law, albeit understandable in light of Viagra.
On appeal, the FCA reiterated that the SCC decision in Teva v Pfizer [Viagra] 2012 SCC 60, did not change the law of enablement (as opposed to disclosure of the invention) [78], a point the Court had originally made in Teva v Leo Pharma 2017 FCA 50 [58]. The Court at [78] emphasized that “Enablement (how to practice the invention) is a concept completely distinct from the disclosure of the invention itself, the latter of which was at issue in Pfizer.” The Court noted that Leo Pharma had been released only after Roy J’s decision [78].
Nonetheless, the FCA affirmed Roy J’s holding on this point, on the view that he had also applied the correct standard [79]. The Court noted that “[t]he extent of the effort required in any given case is a pure question of fact,” and despite Roy J’s error in interpreting Viagra, the FCA cannot substitute its own assessment of the evidence. After reviewing the evidence, the Court held that it was open to Roy J to conclude that a major research project would have been required to work the invention [95].
Two points mentioned by the FCA in arriving at this conclusion are worth noting.
First, the patent did not contain even a single clear example of the full configuration. While an example does not serve to limit the claims, it may nonetheless be important to proper disclosure [85]. Moreover, there was “no evidence that anyone was ever able to make a configuration of the invention on the sole basis of the information contained in the disclosures without the pyramidal frame assembly claimed in the 264 Patent” [86]. This suggests that a pyramidal frame assembly, which was not disclosed in the Rider Position Patents, might have been necessary to solving the problems associated with the new rider position.
Second, in my post on this aspect of Roy J’s decision, I had noted that Roy J seemed to suggest that the specification should have explained how the new invention was different from the prior art, even though that is not required as a matter of law. The FCA reaffirmed that “an inventor does not have to describe the differences between an embodiment of the invention and those of the prior art” [84].
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