Fresh From the Bench: Latest Precedential Patent Case

CASE OF THE WEEK

K-Fee System GmbH v. Nespresso USA, Inc., Appeal No. 2022-2042 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 26, 2023)

In an appeal from a district court judgment of noninfringement, the Federal Circuit reversed the underlying claim construction ruling.  The case concerned the import of statements made during the prosecution of a foreign counterpart application.  Specifically, the issue was the meaning of the word “barcode.”

The case concerns patents for single-use pods used in coffee makers.  The patents all claim a “barcode” on the pod that is used to encode brewing parameters (temperature, amount of water) to be read by the coffee maker.  In Europe, Nespresso opposed K-fee’s application for a related patent.  K-fee sought to distinguish prior art that used “bit codes,” or codes made up of two binary characters.  In the instant lawsuit, the district court found this to have been intrinsic evidence, and found it to be sufficient disclaimer of “bit codes” as a form of “barcode.”  The court issued a claim construction order that “barcode” has its plain and ordinary meaning, “which is understood by the clear and unequivocal statements K-fee made to the EPO (i.e., the scope of barcode does not include the type of bit code disclosed in” the prior art.

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Editors:

Nika Aldrich, IP Litigation Group Leader, Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt, P.C.

Jason A. Wrubleski, Shareholder