Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. v. Covidien, Inc., No. 14-1370 (Fed. Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseEthicon’s patents are directed to surgical instruments that use ultrasonic energy created by blades vibrating at high frequencies to cut tissue and blood vessels and use heat generated from friction to coagulate and seal blood vessels and prevent bleeding. Ethicon manufactures and sells such ultrasonic surgical instruments. Covidien launched a competing line. Ethicon sued, alleging infringement. After Markman proceedings and the close of discovery, the court entered summary judgment of invalidity and/or noninfringement of the asserted claims. The Federal Circuit reversed on invalidity of the 501 patent for indefiniteness; the specification provides sufficient guidance to a person of ordinary skill in the art as to the scope of asserted claims. The court vacated summary judgment of noninfringement of the 275 patent because the court improperly resolved genuine disputes of material fact in favor of Covidien instead of Ethicon, the non-movant. The court reversed the grant of invalidity of the design patents based on functionality. The district court evaluated the claimed designs using too high a level of abstraction, focusing on unclaimed utilitarian aspects of the underlying article instead of claimed ornamental designs of that article. The court affirmed summary judgment of noninfringement of the design patents. After the functional aspects of the claimed designs are properly excluded from the analysis, the claimed ornamental designs are plainly dissimilar from Covidien’s.
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