Atlantic Research Marketing Systems (ARMS) v. Troy Industries (Fed. Cir. 2011)
By Dennis Crouch
This appeal stems from a 2007 patent infringement and business tort lawsuit filed by ARMS against its former employee and current competitor (Mr. Troy). ARMS' reissue patent claims a firearm hand-guard with an attachment point at the firearm's barrel nut. The original patent application included both the barrel nut attachment and a sleeve support as claim limitations. However, the reissue patent does not require the sleeve support. That change is important for the case because TROY's competing hand-guard uses the barrel nut as the single attachment point.
On summary judgment the district court ruled the patent invalid for failing the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112 p1.
Written Description Requirement: Section 112 p1 of the Patent Act requires that a patent specification include "a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same." In Ariad, the Federal Circuit reaffirmed that this provision creates the separate and distinct requirements of written description and enablement. The test for written description considers whether, after reading the original specification, one of skill in the art would understand that the inventor was in possession of the claimed invention. Most written description cases arise in situations like this where the patentee has amended its claims well after the application filing date.
Although not cited here, this case is similar to the Federal Circuit's Gentry Gallery decision where an element in the original claims was omitted in a broader-amended claim. In Gentry Gallery, the original application was directed to a pair of recliners with controls located on a console. The amended claims removed any restriction on the console location. The Federal Circuit held those broader claims invalid because "the patent disclosure did not support claims in which location of recliner controls was other than on the console."
On appeal here, the Federal Circuit agreed that the broader claims are invalid under the written description requirement because it the specification does not provide any evidence that the inventor invented a hand-guard that uses the barrel nut as the one and only attachment point.
[I]t is undisputed that the written description for the '465 patent does not disclose to a person of ordinary skill in the art an invention where the yoke/barrel nut attachment point provides complete support for the handguard accessory. Claims 31-36, however, clearly cover such a design. Put differently, claims 31-36 [as amended] exceed in scope the subject matter that [the inventor] chose to disclose to the public in the written description. Therefore, we hold that the district court properly granted summary judgment invalidating claims 31-36 for failing to satisfy the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112. Mr. Swan used the reissue process to impermissibly obtain claims unsupported by the written description.
ARMS had also sued TROY for trade secret violation and argued in court that ARMS version of the barrel-nut-only attachment was a trade secret stolen by TROY. That testimony bolstered the court's conclusion that the asserted claims lacked the written description support to cover a barrel-nut-only attachment.
[ARMS] cannot now "have it both ways" by reaching back and relying on the disclosures in the '245 patent to claim an invention he was purposely shielding from the public.
Trade Secret Violation: Although TROY won the patent dispute, the jury found troy liable for trade secret misappropriation and breach of a fiduciary duty to his former employee. The award was $1.8 million in damages under Massachusetts Trade Secret Law. (Massachusetts has not adopted the UTSA). As noted above, the alleged trade secret is the method of attaching the hand-guard to a firearm using only the barrel nut. The jury was instructed that any protectable trade secret must go beyond what was disclosed in the '245 patent. Based upon that instruction, the Federal Circuit affirmed – finding no clear error.
This strategy worked perfectly for ARMS who would likely be satisfied winning either patent infringement or trade secret misappropriations. Although the court clearly sympathized with TROY's position, it noted that the legal positions taken by the two parties meant that ARMS was likely to win one of its claims.
Troy's argument illustrates the inherent tension Atlantic Research created by contending that Troy misappropriated trade secrets, while simultaneously asserting that the products Troy developed with the misappropriated trade secrets infringed its patent. In response, Troy contended that Atlantic Research's patent disclosed the trade secret, but also contended that the patent asserted against it was invalid for failing to disclose a written description of a handguard that attaches solely at the barrel nut. These conflicting positions left little room for either party to prevail on both claims.
The problem: In the end, the Federal Circuit vacated the jury verdict on a "jury taint" issue. One juror brought a plumbing clamp from home during deliberations to show other jurors and the appellate panel held that the judge should have taken more dramatic steps to ensure that the clamp did not have any "prejudicial effect on the jury as a whole."
