Biomedino v. Waters Technology (Fed. Cir. 2007).
Biomedino holds a patent for removing psychoactive drugs from a blood sample for toxicology studies. The district court found the patent invalid as indefinite under 35 U.S.C. 112 ¶ 2. In particular, the lower court held that the recited limitation "control means for automatically operating [a] valving" was indefinite because the specification did not include any structure corresponding to the means-plus-function language. On appeal, the CAFC affirmed.
35 U.S.C. 112 ¶ 6 allows a patent applicant to broadly claim a "means" for performing a specific function. That claim, however, must be backed-up by a patent specification that describes "some structure which performs the specified function."
Here, the patentee had indicated that the invention “may be controlled automatically by known differential pressure, valving and control equipment.” This disclosure was, however, insufficient.
[A] bare statement that known techniques or methods can be used does not disclose structure. To conclude otherwise would vitiate the language of the statute requiring “corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification.
In addition, the court held that the structure must be disclosed in the specification even if one of skill in the art could implement a structure without such a disclosure.
Invalidity affirmed.
