United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
06-1065, -1097
L & W, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SHERTECH, INC.
and STEVEN W. SHERIDAN,
Defendants-Cross Appellants.
R. Terrance Rader, Rader, Fishman & Grauer PLLC, of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan,
argued for plaintiff-appellant. With him on the brief was Glenn E. Forbis.
Steven Susser, Young & Susser, of Southfield, Michigan, argued for defendants-
cross appellants. With him on the brief was Rodger D. Young.
Appealed from: United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan
Judge John Corbett O’Meara
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
06-1065,-1097
L & W, INC.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
SHERTECH, INC.
and STEVEN W. SHERIDAN,
Defendants-Cross-Appellants.
___________________________
DECIDED: December 14, 2006
___________________________
Before MAYER, Circuit Judge, CLEVENGER, Senior Circuit Judge, and BRYSON,
Circuit Judge.
BRYSON, Circuit Judge.
L&W, Inc., a manufacturer of heat shields for automobiles, sued Shertech, Inc.,
and Steven W. Sheridan (collectively, “Shertech”) in the United States District Court for
the Eastern District of Michigan. L&W sought a declaratory judgment that it did not
infringe Shertech’s U.S. Patent No. 5,670,264 (“the ’264 patent”), that the ’264 patent
was invalid, and that the ’264 patent was unenforceable because of inequitable conduct.
Shertech counterclaimed, alleging that L&W’s products infringed the ’264 patent.
On cross-motions for summary judgment on the infringement claim, the district
court entered summary judgment of infringement. The parties then tried the invalidity
claims to a jury. The jury rendered special verdicts, finding all the claims of the ’264
patent invalid except for claim 7. A bench trial was then held on L&W’s inequitable
conduct claim. The district court rejected that claim, holding that L&W failed to prove
that Mr. Sheridan or his counsel acted with intent to deceive the U.S. Patent and
Trademark Office. L&W moved for a new trial or judgment as a matter of law on claim 7
based in part on an asserted inconsistency in the jury’s special verdicts. Shertech
moved for a new trial or judgment as a matter of law on claim 10. The district court
denied both motions and entered judgment against L&W on claim 7 of the patent.
L&W appeals from the portion of the judgment holding it liable under claim 7, and
Shertech cross-appeals from the portion of the judgment holding claim 10 invalid. We
vacate the judgment of infringement on claim 7 and remand for further proceedings as
to infringement. We affirm the portions of the judgment holding claim 7 valid and claim
10 invalid. We affirm the portion of the judgment holding that the ’264 patent is not
unenforceable due to inequitable conduct.
I
The district court entered summary judgment of infringement because it found
that Shertech had shown that the accused products contained each disputed limitation
of the asserted claims and that L&W had failed to point to a genuine issue of material
fact with respect to any of the claim limitations. In particular, the district court concluded
that the metal sheets of L&W’s heat shields contained “standoffs” within the meaning of
the claim 7 limitation requiring the recited heat shield to have “standoffs in local contact
with at least one adjacent sheet of the plurality of sheets to generally separate each of
the plurality of sheets from the adjacent sheet thereby creating a space between each
of the plurality of sheets and the adjacent sheet.” The district court construed the term
06-1065,-1097 2
“standoff” to mean “a projection that either separates or has the potential to separate.”
Neither party disputes that definition on appeal.1
The district court predicated its summary judgment of infringement in part on its
conclusion that L&W “acknowledges that embossments separate the layers of its heat
shields” when the component metal sheets are stacked together. Our review of the
record, however, convinces us that L&W did not acknowledge that its embossments
separate the layers of its heat shields.
In support of the district court’s conclusion that L&W had in effect acknowledged
infringement of the “standoffs” limitation, Shertech relies heavily on a patent application
filed by L&W. According to Shertech, the application discloses a multi-layer heat shield
in which air gaps would form between the embossed metal layers of the heat shield at
an elevated temperature. Shertech argues that L&W’s witnesses admitted that the
accused L&W products embody the features of the heat shields described in the
application. Accordingly, Shertech contends, L&W in effect “admitted that [the
undulations in its heat-shield layers] can act to separate one heat shield [layer] from the
other” when the layers get hot during use and shift with respect to one another.
It is true that the application states that undulations will cause the metal layers of
certain embossed heat shields to separate at elevated temperatures. But L&W did not
1
On appeal, the parties implicitly (and properly) accept the understanding that
the “separation or potential for separation” sufficient to satisfy the district court’s
definition of “standoff” refers to separation in excess of that ordinarily found between
layers of metal sheeting. As Shertech’s expert indicated in his report, some amount of
spacing between heat-shield layers is unavoidable due to the surface roughness of the
metal layers and other factors; “separation” for purposes of the standoff limitation
therefore requires more than the amount of separation that would normally be found
between layers of flat metal sheets.
06-1065,-1097 3
admit that its accused heat shields contain undulations similar to those that allow
separation at elevated temperatures, nor did it admit that its accused heat shields
operate at the same “elevated temperatures” referred to in the application. To be sure,
one L&W employee referred to the design of the application as “our design,” and
another stated that various of the L&W accused products are “covered” by the
application. The application, however, contains not only a description of a specific heat
shield whose layers separate at elevated temperatures, but also a more general
discussion of a particular method of manufacturing heat shields. The statements by the
L&W employees are not clearly tied to the former rather than the latter, and they
therefore fall short of admissions that the accused products are identical to a specific
heat shield described in the application.
Following its references to L&W’s purported acknowledgement that the
embossments serve to separate the layers of L&W’s heat shields, the district court
commented, without elaboration, that the embossments in each of L&W’s accused
products “clearly create air gaps or have the potential to create air gaps” and thus
satisfy the “standoff” limitation as the court construed it. For the reasons given below,
we conclude that the evidence submitted in connection with the motions for summary
judgment did not establish that Shertech is entitled to summary judgment on each of the
accused products that formed the basis for Shertech’s charge of infringement.2
2
At various points in its brief, L&W relies on evidence that was offered at the
trial on invalidity, including testimony from two of its employees, to support its argument
that the court’s earlier grant of summary judgment on infringement was improper.
Evidence that was not before the district court at the time of the summary judgment
proceeding, however, cannot be invoked to challenge the summary judgment order.
See Monarch Knitting Mach. Corp. v. Sulzer Morat GmbH, 139 F.3d 877, 880 (Fed. Cir.
06-1065,-1097 4
The parties agree as to the general steps that L&W uses in manufacturing its
heat shields: it first stacks thin, planar aluminum sheets of equal thickness; it next
crimps or hems the edges of the sheets to hold them together; it then presses dimples
or embossments into the planar stack; finally, it presses the planar stack into its final
shape.
Shertech’s evidence of infringement is found in the report of its expert witness,
Dr. John W. Holmes. Dr. Holmes’s report consists of several general statements about
heat-shield structure and performance, and several specific observations about one
particular L&W product. In his general statements, Dr. Holmes first remarked that
“[d]uring final forming of a multi-layer heat shield (e.g., by drawing), some amount of
shifting between the sheets will occur,” causing the creation of air gaps between the
sheets. Dr. Holmes also reported that he had conducted an experiment in which he
rolled nested layers of embossed aluminum around a 3.9-inch-diameter cylinder and
observed that the metal sheets shifted with respect to each other. Nothing in the
evidence indicates, however, that the 3.9-inch cylindrical shape of Dr. Holmes’s
experiment is similar to the shape of any accused L&W product. In fact, one of L&W’s
experts, J. Ralph King, made that point in his declaration, and Shertech did not
contradict him. Moreover, Dr. Holmes himself conceded that the sheets in his test were
not crimped and were therefore free to slide relative to one another. In the L&W heat
shields, he noted, “the edges of the stack are crimped prior to forming [and] this ‘free’
1998); Laitram Corp. v. Cambridge Wire Cloth Co., 919 F.2d 1579, 1581 & n.4 (Fed.
Cir. 1990). We therefore do not consider that evidence in our review of the trial court’s
summary judgment of infringement.
06-1065,-1097 5
shifting is reduced.” Dr. Holmes’s general observations about the tendency of the
layers of a multi-layer heat shield to shift during final formation thus lack the specificity
necessary to establish as a matter of law that the embossments in the particular
accused heat shields create separations sufficient to satisfy the “standoff” limitation.
In the second of Dr. Holmes’s general statements, he stated that a temperature
differential across the thickness of a heat shield “will cause the various layers to
displace relative to one another.” Like his first general statement, Dr. Holmes’s
observation about the tendency of metal heat shield layers to displace relative to one
another under a temperature gradient lacks the specificity necessary to establish that
L&W’s heat shields will have separations sufficient to satisfy the “standoff” limitation in
the course of their intended use. Attempting to quantify his theory, Dr. Holmes stated
that in the case of “an assumed temperature difference of 500 F,” the maximum
thermally induced displacement is approximately 0.078 inches for a 12-inch-long section
of heat shield material. That evidence is of only marginal value, however, because it is
not accompanied by any evidence as to the temperature differential encountered by
L&W’s heat shields in actual use.
In addition to his general statements about the construction and functioning of
heat shields, Dr. Holmes conducted a specific analysis of L&W’s heat shield #P30432B,
one of the 16 allegedly infringing products. Dr. Holmes asserted in his report that
L&W’s heat shield #P30432B was “typical” of all the accused heat shields, and Shertech
treated his analysis as applicable to all of the accused products. There is, however, no
evidence to support that conclusion. Dr. Holmes’s report contains no indication of which
features of heat shield #P30432B he regarded as “typical.” In a footnote to his report
06-1065,-1097 6
Dr. Holmes stated that “I personally examined approximately all L&W heat shields
provided to Shertech in this matter.” Setting aside the problematic word
“approximately,” that statement does not reveal what form his examination of the other
products took, nor does it state what the results of that examination were. It is therefore
of marginal value at best.
Dr. Holmes analyzed heat shield #P30432B by cutting a cross-section of that
heat shield and measuring the thicknesses of its planar and curved portions. He found
that the curved portions were up to 0.020 inches thicker than the thickest planar
sections. Upon inspection, he concluded that the extra thickness was the result of the
nested embossments riding up on one another and creating air gaps between the metal
layers of the L&W heat shield.
L&W did not offer specific evidence to rebut Dr. Holmes’s measurements of heat
shield #P30432B, but instead relied on evidence pertaining to its heat shields generally
in an effort to show that there is a genuine dispute of material fact as to the formation of
air pockets in the L&W heat shields. First, L&W pointed to the declaration of its
president, Scott Jones, who stated that L&W manufactures its heat shields by stacking
layers of aluminum on top of one another and embossing the stacked layers
simultaneously. Mr. Jones stated that L&W embosses its heat shields to improve their
rigidity and that the embossments do not introduce air gaps when the sheets are
stacked. With respect to the curved portions, to which Dr. Holmes had referred, Mr.
Jones stated that “[d]uring the stamping process, embossments in the curved portions
of non-planar heat shields are ‘ironed out’ due to the forces of the stamping press” and
06-1065,-1097 7
that the embossments in the L&W products therefore do not cause the metal layers to
separate.
Second, L&W pointed to the declaration of its expert, Dr. Kirby S. Chapman. In
his declaration, Dr. Chapman stated that he had examined several L&W heat shields
and had cut through portions of the heat shields to inspect their construction and “the
mechanism by which any gap between one or more layers might exist.” Like Mr. Jones,
Dr. Chapman stated that the stacked sheets of the L&W heat shields are embossed
simultaneously and that the embossments are “not intended to create air gaps but
instead to increase the rigidity of the heat shield.” As a result of the simultaneous
embossing of the entire stack of metal sheets, he explained, “the embossments of the
sheets nest together.” Consequently, “the sheets of the accused products lie as
proximate or close to each other as possible” before final forming. With respect to the
curved sections of the heat shields, Dr. Chapman stated that “my examination of the
L&W heat shield samples shows that in many of the curved sections of the heat shields,
any embossments have been ‘ironed out’ or flattened as a result of the production
process.”
The principal weakness of L&W’s evidence is that it does not directly confront Dr.
Holmes’s measurements of L&W part #P30432B. Dr. Holmes’s analysis of that part
was specific, and L&W’s response was general. If the parties and the district court had
focused on the case of infringement with respect to part #P30432B, the district court
might have found Dr. Holmes’s specific evidence as to that part inadequately rebutted,
in which case the court would have been justified in concluding that L&W had failed to
demonstrate the existence of a genuine issue of material fact as to that particular
06-1065,-1097 8
product. But Shertech did not move for summary judgment of infringement on a part-
by-part basis. Instead, both parties approached the issue of infringement as an “all-or-
nothing” matter, and the district court accordingly addressed the summary judgment
motions in the same manner. On appeal, we decline to recast the motions and to grant
relief that no party has sought, to wit, to affirm with respect to one product and reverse
as to the others.
Shertech seeks to make up for the fact that Dr. Holmes’s declaration assumes,
without support, that all of L&W’s accused products are structurally similar to part
#P30432B by arguing that “if L&W genuinely believed that there were relevant
distinctions between the ‘accused products’ that would have affected the district court’s
infringement analysis, L&W was obligated to make those arguments at the summary
judgment stage in order to refute Shertech’s assumption that the design of the sixteen
heat shields was substantially similar.” Among the flaws in that argument is that it
ignores the burden of proof on infringement, which falls on Shertech, the patentee.
Shertech cannot simply “assume” that all of L&W’s products are like the one Dr. Holmes
tested and thereby shift to L&W the burden to show that is not the case. When a
patentee with the burden of proof seeks summary judgment of infringement, it must
make a prima facie showing of infringement as to each accused device before the
burden shifts to the accused infringer to offer contrary evidence. See Saab Cars USA,
Inc. v. United States, 434 F.3d 1359, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (party with the burden of
proof on an issue must “provide evidence sufficient, if unopposed, to prevail as a matter
of law”); see also Exigent Tech., Inc. v. Atrana Solutions, Inc., 442 F.3d 1301, 1307 n.6
(Fed. Cir. 2006) (same); Massey v. Del Labs., Inc., 118 F.3d 1568, 1573 (Fed. Cir.
06-1065,-1097 9
1997); 11 James Wm. Moore, Moore’s Federal Practice § 56.13[1], at 56-135 (2006)
(“[I]f the movant has the burden of persuasion on an issue, the movant must make a
stronger claim to summary judgment by introducing supporting evidence that would
conclusively establish movant’s right to a judgment after trial should nonmovant fail to
rebut the evidence.”). On the record made before the district court, we hold that
Shertech failed to satisfy its burden of showing that there is no genuine issue of material
fact on the issue of infringement.
II
In its special verdicts, the jury found four of the five asserted claims of the ’264
patent (claims 1, 4, 6, and 10) invalid, but found the remaining claim (claim 7) not
invalid. On appeal, L&W attacks the verdict as to claim 7 on three grounds:
(1) inconsistency in the verdicts as to claim 7, an independent claim, and claim 10,
which depends from claim 7; (2) inconsistency in the verdicts as to claim 7 and closely
related independent claim 1; and (3) insufficiency of the evidence to support the jury’s
verdict of “not invalid” as to claim 7. In its cross-appeal, Shertech agrees with L&W that
the verdicts as to claims 7 and 10 are inconsistent but argues that the inconsistency
should be resolved by holding both claims valid.
A
The district court held that both parties waived their objections to the
inconsistency between the jury’s verdict on claim 7 and its verdict on claim 10 by failing
to object before the jury was discharged. After the verdict was read, the district court
conducted a jury poll, instructed the jurors as to their rights to talk about the case, and
discharged the jury. Neither party objected before the jury was discharged that the
06-1065,-1097 10
special verdicts were inconsistent. Immediately after the jury was discharged, the
district court asked counsel for any final additions to the record. Again, no objection
was made to the verdict for inconsistency.
We apply the law of the pertinent regional circuit to the procedural rules
regarding inconsistent jury verdicts and the waiver of objections to such verdicts. Minn.
Mining & Mfg. Co. v. Chemque, Inc., 303 F.3d 1294, 1302 & n.1 (Fed. Cir. 2002).
Under Sixth Circuit law, a party waives its objection to inconsistency in a jury’s verdict if
the party had an adequate opportunity to object but failed to do so. In Tennessee
Consolidated Coal Co. v. United Mine Workers of America, 416 F.2d 1192, 1200 (6th
Cir. 1969), the Sixth Circuit set forth that rule in the context of a jury’s general verdict
and separate factual findings returned pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure
49(b). The appellant in that case argued that the jury’s general verdict was inconsistent
with one of its special findings. The appellant, however, failed to raise that objection
before the jury was discharged. Id. at 1199–1200. For that reason, the Sixth Circuit
held that the appellant had waived its objection, reasoning that “had objections been
made, the court could have resubmitted [the special findings] to the jury for further
consideration.” Id. at 1200.
This case is similar to Tennessee Consolidated. Although the jury here returned
a special verdict containing written factual findings pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 49(a), as opposed to a general verdict together with responses to factual
interrogatories pursuant to Rule 49(b), that distinction does not make a difference. In
both cases, the waiver rule promotes judicial efficiency by requiring that the trial court
be given a chance to let the original jury resolve any inconsistency in its responses. We
06-1065,-1097 11
also find that, as in Tennessee Consolidated, each party had an adequate opportunity
to object to the alleged inconsistency. Trial counsel could have objected either before
the court discharged the jury or immediately thereafter, when the court directed the
jurors to return to the jury room and asked counsel, “Anything anybody would like the
record to reflect at this time?” If counsel had raised the issue of verdict inconsistency at
that point, it would have been a simple matter for the court to recall the jury and direct it
to resume its deliberations until the inconsistency in the verdict was resolved.
L&W argues that the return of the verdict, the poll of the jury, and the discharge
of the jury all occurred within six minutes, and that counsel therefore “did not have
adequate time to evaluate the verdicts for the first time.” However, the verdict was a
simple one and the issue of inconsistency between the verdicts as to independent claim
7 and dependent claim 10 should have been obvious. Indeed, the use of the Rule 49
procedure to elicit specific factual findings from the jury should alert lawyers to the
possibility that the jury’s responses might be inconsistent. See Skillin v. Kimball, 643
F.2d 19 (1st Cir. 1981). We are not persuaded that the period of time given to counsel
to evaluate the relatively simple verdict in this case was insufficient to alert them to the
possible inconsistency between the special verdicts on claims 7 and 10.
Finally, L&W argues that we should apply a “plain error” exception to the waiver
rule. No published Sixth Circuit opinion has recognized such an exception with respect
to inconsistent verdicts, and we think that the pragmatic justification behind the waiver
doctrine—preventing misuse of procedural rules to obtain a new trial when
inconsistencies are most efficiently resolved by the original jury—would lead the Sixth
Circuit to reject such an exception if it were asked to create one. E.g., Skillin, 643 F.2d
06-1065,-1097 12
at 20. Thus, we hold that the parties waived their objections to inconsistency in the
jury’s findings on claims 7 and 10 by failing to object at trial.
B
L&W next argues that the jury’s verdict is fatally inconsistent because the jury
found claim 1 invalid and claim 7 valid, even though those two claims are
indistinguishable. The district court considered and rejected that argument on the
merits, so we too address the merits of that contention.
Claims 1 and 7 need not rise and fall together because they do not have the
same scope. Claim 1 requires each metal sheet of the heat shield to be “biased toward
the adjacent sheets,” whereas claim 7 requires each metal sheet to be “deformed
subsequent to being joined . . . to develop an in-plane stress in each sheet thereby
increasing the rigidity of the heat shield.” L&W argues that the two claims necessarily
cover identical subject matter because (1) deforming the heat shield in a manner that
produces in-plane stresses in the metal sheets necessarily results in each sheet of the
heat shield being biased toward the adjacent sheets; and (2) Shertech disclaimed
planar heat shields during prosecution of the ’264 patent, so claim 1, like claim 7, covers
only bent heat shields.
We disagree. Even assuming, as L&W asserts, that claim 1 does not cover
planar shields, the jury still could have found the two claims distinguishable on at least
one other ground. Claim 7 requires that the metal sheets of the heat shield be “fixedly
joined along the edges so the edges of the plurality of sheets are substantially
immoveable” at the time the sheets are subjected to in-plane stress, which in turn
occurs while the heat shield is being deformed to a final shape. Claim 1 does not
06-1065,-1097 13
require that sequence of steps, but merely requires that the sheets be both joined at the
edges and biased toward the adjacent sheets. The jury could have concluded that
claim 1 is broader than claim 7 on that ground, and thus there is no necessary
inconsistency in the jury’s verdicts as to the validity of those claims.
C
L&W contends that, in light of the evidence of anticipation introduced at trial, no
reasonable jury could have found claim 7 not anticipated. In reviewing the sufficiency of
the evidence to support the jury’s verdict, we may inquire only whether the findings
necessary to the jury’s verdict are supported by the evidence, and we must conduct that
inquiry in light of Shertech’s burden to overcome the presumption of validity. “Where,
as here, there is a verdict of validity, the question is . . . whether the challenger’s
evidence so met the burden [of establishing invalidity by clear and convincing evidence]
that reasonable jurors could not have concluded that the challenger failed to overcome
that burden.” Perkin-Elmer Corp. v. Computervision Corp., 732 F.2d 888, 893 (Fed. Cir.
1984).
At trial, L&W’s expert, Dr. Chapman, reviewed a number of prior art references,
including several U.S. patents. He testified that each of the prior art heat shields
contained metal layers and that several of the patents suggested that the heat shields
could be bent. But claim 7 requires more than that a heat shield consist of metal layers
and be bent; it requires that the bending take place after the sheets are joined along the
edges and that the metal layers experience in-plane stress. L&W argues that in-plane
stress develops in the metal sheets of a heat shield whenever the heat shield is bent,
06-1065,-1097 14
and it argues that one of the prior art references, the Jeep Grand Cherokee heat shield,
“was bent from a planar to a non-planar configuration after the sheets were hemmed.”
The problem with L&W’s reliance on prior art patents is that the patents it cites do
not disclose hemming the edges before bending the metal layers. And the problem with
L&W’s reliance on the Jeep Cherokee heat shield is that there was evidence, which the
jury could have credited, that the Jeep Cherokee heat shield did not come under stress
upon bending. Dr. Holmes testified about that heat shield as follows:
Q: The Jeep Cherokee insulation pad, sir, if you could look at it, does it
have what you would refer to as score lines?
A. Yes, many score lines, yes.
....
Q. And what relationship is there between score lines on the one hand
and biasing or in-plane stress on the other?
A. [T]he score lines are there so that you can relieve stress and bend
the particular part. . . . [I]f you’ve got a slit [i.e., score line], you
would have relieved any potential in-plane stress that would have
been in an object.
Trial Tr. 171:17–172:17, May 12, 2005.
L&W argues that the jury’s reliance on such testimony to conclude that a non-
planar prior art device does not exhibit in-plane stress would be legally erroneous
because, under the district court’s claim construction, the “in-plane stress” limitation is
necessarily satisfied “if a metal sheet is bent from a planar to a non-planar
configuration.” That argument, however, misconstrues the district court’s definition of
“in-plane stress.” The court defined the term “in-plane stress” as “the stress introduced
into the [fixed] metal sheets [of a heat shield] when they are bent from a planar to a non-
planar configuration.” That definition requires that some stress be created upon
06-1065,-1097 15
deformation. The jury could properly have concluded from Dr. Holmes’s testimony that
although the Jeep Cherokee heat shield was deformed from a planar to a non-planar
shape, that deformation did not introduce any stress into the heat shield because of its
score lines. Accordingly, the jury could have found that the Jeep Cherokee heat shield
did not anticipate claim 7.
III
L&W’s final argument is that Shertech’s patent is unenforceable for inequitable
conduct. The district court addressed that claim at trial and rejected it. In particular, the
court found no clear and convincing evidence that Mr. Sheridan or his attorney acted
with intent to deceive or mislead the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office by not disclosing
the Jeep Cherokee heat shield to the patent examiner. L&W quarrels with the district
court’s ruling, but it presents no persuasive reason to conclude that the district court’s
finding as to the absence of intent to deceive was clearly erroneous. Accordingly, we
affirm the district court’s order holding that the ’264 patent is not unenforceable because
of inequitable conduct. Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG v. Hantscho Comm’l Prods.,
Inc., 21 F.3d 1068, 1072 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (intent to deceive is a necessary element of
inequitable conduct).
Each party shall bear its own costs for this appeal.
AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, and REMANDED.
06-1065,-1097 16
L & W, Inc. v. Shertech, Inc.
Court: Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
Date filed: 2006-12-14
Citations: 471 F.3d 1311
Copy CitationsCombined Opinion