Ford in fuel patent win at Federal Circuit

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has affirmed a decision in favour of motor company Ford.

Handed down yesterday, March 27, the Federal Circuit’s decision affirmed the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania’s ruling of non-infringement.

In 2012, Delaware-based TMC Fuel Injection System filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Ford, alleging that fuel injection systems in Ford’s vehicles infringed claims 38 and 40 of US patent number 7,318,414.

The ‘414 patent relates to a system for supplying fuel to engines.

Both asserted claims recite a “fuel return path” with a “flow constraint” for stabilising fuel pressure.

While the claim was pending, Ford successfully petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) for inter partes review (IPR) of the asserted claims.

The district court stayed the litigation, including a then-pending motion for summary judgment of non-infringement, until the resolution of the IPR proceedings.

The PTAB, in a consolidated final written decision, held that Ford had not shown that the asserted claims were unpatentable as anticipated or obvious.

According to the Federal Circuit, the board concluded that “several of the asserted prior art references failed to disclose a fuel return path with ‘flow constraint’ because those references used pressure regulators, whereas ‘the prosecution history states an express disclaimer of pressure regulators’ from the ‘414 patent’s ‘flow constraint’ limitation”.

Ford and TMC were then invited by the district court to supplement their briefings on Ford’s motion for summary judgment in view of the board’s IPR decision.

The district court then granted Ford’s summary judgment.

It held that during prosecution, “TMC repeatedly, unequivocally stated its system does not use a pressure regulator and distinguished its invention from prior art using a pressure regulator”.

Because of this, the court amended its claim construction “to exclude pressure regulators of any type from the system”.

It also granted summary judgment of non-infringement because the parties didn’t dispute that Ford’s accused systems included a pressure regulator.

TMC then appealed.

“The only issue on appeal is whether the prosecution history of the ‘414 patent demonstrates that all pressure regulators were disclaimed from the fuel systems of the asserted claims,” said the Federal Circuit.

The prosecution history disclaimer applies when a patentee makes statements during prosecution that would cause “a competitor [to] reasonably conclude that the applicant clearly and unmistakably limited” the scope of its claims.

According to the court, the parties disputed whether during prosecution TMC disclaimed pressure regulators more broadly—from the fuel system as a whole, not just from the flow constraint portion.

TMC argued that any disclaimer of pressure regulators was limited to the system’s flow constraint, while Ford claimed that there was a “categorical disclaimer” of pressure regulators from the entire system.

Assessing the prosecution history, the court sided with Ford, holding that there was no dispute that Ford’s accused products cannot infringe in light of the determination of prosecution disclaimer.

“TMC’s prosecution statements … unequivocally disavow the use of pressure regulators from the entire fuel system,” said the court.

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