Ccs Fitness, Inc. v. Brunswick Corp.

• Decision Date: 03 May 2002
• Docket Number: No. 01-1139.,01-1139.
• Citation: 288 F.3d 1359
• Parties: CCS FITNESS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BRUNSWICK CORPORATION and its Division Life Fitness, Defendants Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Federal Circuit

288 F.3d 1359

CCS FITNESS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. BRUNSWICK CORPORATION and its Division Life Fitness, Defendants Appellees.

No. 01-1139.

United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit.

May 3, 2002.

Rehearing Denied May 30, 2002.

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Paul T. Meiklejohn, Dorsey & Whitney LLP, of Seattle, WA, argued for plaintiff-appellant. With him on the brief was David M. Jacobson.

Linda F. Callison, Colley Godward LLP, of Palo Alto, CA, argued for defendant-appellee. With her on the brief was Ricardo Rodriguez. Of counsel on the brief was Bruce A. Featherstone, Featherstone DeSisto LLP, of Denver, CO.

Before MAYER, Chief Judge, MICHEL and LOURIE, Circuit Judges.

MICHEL, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff-Appellant CCS Fitness, Inc. appeals from a decision by the United States District Court for the District of Colorado holding that the claim limitation "reciprocating member" as used in the asserted patents does not cover anything more than the single-component straight bar depicted in the patents' drawings. As a result, the district court concluded, the accused infringer Life Fitness warranted summary judgment of non-infringement, since its accused exercise machines' "pedal lever" uses a multi-component, curved bar.

Because the claim term "member" has an established meaning and because nothing in the intrinsic evidence narrows that claim term's ordinary meaning, we hold that "member" does encompass a multi-component, curved beam or lever. Thus, we reverse. To the extent that the district court's analysis of the doctrine of equivalents relied on the construction of a claim term other than "reciprocating member," we vacate that portion of the decision and remand. To the extent it relied on that term, we reverse.

I

This case involves a stationary exercise device more commonly known as an elliptical trainer. As shown by the preferred embodiment pictured in CCS Fitness' patents, elliptical trainers comprise a vertical frame attached to a base structure at a right angle, with the base structure resting on the floor. A user approaches this machine from the rear, where he mounts two footpads, each of which lies at the end of a "foot member," a structure that extends and attaches to the vertical frame.

The foot members also intersect with "reciprocating members" (432, below), longitudinal structures that run "substantially parallel" to the floor, with one end of that structure attached to a shaft and crank system located at the vertical-frame end of the machine. The other end of a "member" has "rollers" or wheels attached to it so that the members can "reciprocate" or move back and forth on the floor as the user pushes up and down (or "climbs") on the machine's footpads. As the user does so, the front end of the member rotates around the crankshaft, thereby causing the reciprocating member to rotate in a circular motion before gradually changing into a linear motion. The elliptical trainer generally allows a user to engage in highintensity cardiovascular exercise without putting undue stress on the user's knees.

NOTE: OPINION CONTAINING TABLE OR OTHER DATA THAT IS NOT VIEWABLE

CCS Fitness owns by assignment the three combination patents that claim this stationary exercise device: U.S. Patent Nos. 5,924,962 ('962 patent); 5,938,567 ('567 patent); and 5,683,333 ('333 patent). Claims 9 and 10 from the '962 patent and claims 1 and 2 of the '567 patent are representative:

9. An apparatus for exercising comprising: a frame having a base portion adapted to be supported by a floor; first and second reciprocating members, each reciprocating member having a first and a second end, a portion of said first and second reciprocating members being adapted for substantially linear motion;....

10. The exercising device according to claim 9 wherein said coupler member attaching means comprises: a first element attached at one end to said pulley proximate said pivot axis and at its other end to said second end of said first reciprocating member; and a second element attached at one end to said pulley proximate said pivot access and at its other end to said second end of said second reciprocating member....

1. An apparatus for exercising comprising: a frame having a base portion adapted to be supported by a floor; first and second reciprocating members, each reciprocating member having a rear support and a front end;....

2. The exercise apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said rear support comprises a roller attached to each reciprocating member and adapted to rollably [sic] engage the base portion of said frame.

U.S. Patent No. 5,924,962, col. 8, lines 17-24, 42-49; U.S. Patent No. 5,938,567, col. 6, lines 56-62, col. 7, lines 29-32 (emphases added). Besides the description set forth above, nothing in the claim language of the three patents describes the shape of the reciprocating members or whether it consists of a single-component structure only, as opposed to a structure consisting of multiple components.

In addition, nothing in the respective patents' abstract, summary of invention or detailed description sets forth the shape or makeup of these structures. The drawings for the patents' preferred embodiments depict the reciprocating members as a single-component, straight-bar structure. The prosecution history, meanwhile, discusses only the "angle" taken by a "foot platform relative to a reciprocating member" and the members' wheels and attachment to the crankshaft.

In April 1998, CCS Fitness sued Brunswick Corporation and its division Life Fitness (collectively referred to as "Life Fitness"), alleging that two of Life Fitness' elliptical exercisers literally infringed claims 9, 10 and 12 of the '962 patent, claims 1-5 of the '567 patent and further infringed, under the doctrine of equivalents, claims 1-6 of the '333 patent. The parties do not dispute that, in lieu of "reciprocating members," Life Fitness' accused machines use "pedal levers," structures that curve upward as they approach the frame end of the machine. The "pedal levers" also use multiple components to attach to and rotate around a crankshaft, not a single component.

Both parties moved for summary judgment, with CCS Fitness arguing that the reciprocating members contained in each of the claims at issue comprised more than simply a single-component, straight bar — they also included the curved, multi-component structure used in the accused devices. The parties agreed that "reciprocating" referred to the "back and forth" movement of the "member"; but the district court disagreed with CCS Fitness' proposed construction of "member," reasoning that the claim language never alluded to the reciprocating members as having multiple parts. Further, said the district court, the "illustrations in the three patents-in-suit show a reciprocating member ... made of one contiguous piece of hard material, with no connections or joints."

As to the shape of the reciprocating members, the court noted that nothing in the claims, specifications or prosecution history indicates what shape these structures had to take; but again, it reasoned that the "figures [of the claimed invention] illustrate a straight bar." Citing Bocciarelli v. Huffman, 43 C.C.P.A. 873, 232 F.2d 647, 652 (1956), the district court maintained that if CCS Fitness wanted to claim a device whose reciprocating member included a curved, multi-component structure, its patents should have included an illustration that showed these embodiments. To shore up this analysis, the district court then substituted the language "single straight bars that move back and forth" in lieu of the claims' use of "reciprocating members," concluding that its interpretation was "logical" when read in that light. Accordingly, because the accused devices used a curved reciprocating member that consisted of multiple components, the district court concluded that it did not literally infringe CCS Fitness' '962 or '567 patents as a matter of law, thereby entitling Life Fitness to summary judgment.

The district court also granted summary judgment for Life Fitness on CCS Fitness' claim that the accused exercise machines infringed the '333 patent under the doctrine of equivalents. In a brief analysis, the district court did not identify or construe the claim language at issue in this patent. Instead, it noted that the "Patent illustrations and CCS video" showed that the "CCS machine" caused its reciprocating members to rotate around the crankshaft in a "perfect circle." By contrast, reasoned the court, the "circle" created by the accused machines used "multiple links" to generate that result, leading the court to conclude that CCS Fitness could not establish that its invention and the accused devices relied on the "same way to create substantially the same result."

CCS Fitness appeals, arguing again that the ordinary meaning of the term "reciprocating member" — whether defined by an ordinary or a technical dictionary — covers a curved structure consisting of one or more components. In support of this argument, CCS Fitness directs our attention to what it calls the "Alternative A" and "Alternative B" set of components used by the accused devices. Life Fitness counters that (among other things) the specification and the drawings can limit the scope of the claimed reciprocating members, since "member" is a vague term whose scope requires clarification from the specification and drawings. To support this argument, Life Fitness points to an affidavit from an expert who avers that "member" has no customary meaning to one of ordinary skill, thereby necessitating resort to the specification. The record, however, also contains an affidavit from the inventor who asserts that "member" has a broad, ordinary meaning in the relevant art.

Alternatively, Life Fitness suggests that the claimed "member" is so lacking in structure that it essentially constitutes a means-plus-function clause, see 35 U.S.C. § 112...