The Federal Circuit held that the district court’s construction of two of the three appealed claim terms was incorrect, and therefore it reversed the grant of summary judgment of non-infringement of certain asserted claims. With respect to the claim term “sealed tank,” the court held that the dictionary definition relied on by the district court was insufficient, because the term “sealed” can have more than one meaning and, here, its meaning could be ascertained from the intrinsic record to mean sealed such that the tank’s contents are not exposed to the atmosphere, rather than being sealed to all inputs and outputs. With respect to the “oxidizing” step, the court held that it was erroneous to require that all or substantially all of the material be oxidized during this step, because the claim does not exclude a continuous process and therefore there need only be some material that is oxidized, and this oxidized material can then be acted upon in the next step in a continuous manner.
Kaneka Corp. v. Xiamen Kingdomway Group Company, Case Nos. 2014-1373, -1399 (June 10, 2015); Opinion by: Reyna, joined by Newman and Hughes; Appealed From: District Court for the Central District of California, Pfaelzer, J. Read the full opinion here.
