Addressing the issue of whether the claim language "containing a mixture of lipid and solid ingredients" limits the soft inner component of a claimed dual textured pet food product, solely to lipid and solid ingredients, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit disagreed with the district court’s conclusion that the claim language was so limited, and thus vacated and remanded the court’s decision that granted summary judgment of non-infringement. Mars, Inc. v. H.J. Heinz Co., Case No. 03-1617 (July 29, 2004) (Shall, J.; Dyk, J.; Prost, J.).
Mars Inc., brought suit against H.J. Heinz Company, et al. (Heinz) in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleging that certain lines of pet food marketed by Heinz infringed U.S. Patent No. 6,312,746. At a Markman hearing, Mars argued that the limitation "containing a mixture of lipid and solid ingredients" means that the claimed "soft inner component" contains, but is not limited to, lipid and solid ingredients. More specifically, Mars contended that the terms "containing" and "mixture" are open-ended terms, and thus do not exclude the presence of other ingredients.
In its claim construction order, the district court disagreed with Mars, and concluded that the limitation was closed-ended, and thus construed the limitation to include only lipid and solid ingredients. Subsequently, both Mars and Heinz moved for summary judgment on the issue of infringement. The meaning of the term "ingredients" was not argued at the Markman hearing nor construed by the court, but became an issue in the parties’ motions for summary judgment. Specifically, Mars argued that "ingredients" should be construed to refer to either the starting materials or the end components of the finished product. Mars contended that the limitation "containing a mixture of lipid and solid ingredients" was met because the end components of the accused finished products have a "soft inner component" that contained only lipids and solids. Heinz however argued, among other things, that the term "ingredients" referred only to the starting materials used to make the product, and the starting materials in the accused products also included non-lipid and non-solid ingredients.
The district court agreed with Heinz’s construction of "ingredients" and granted Heinz’s motion for summary judgment of non-infringement. The court also held that there was no infringement under the doctrine of equivalents because "such application of the doctrine of equivalents would vitiate the ‘containing a mixture of lipid and solid ingredients,’ and thereby run afoul of the all-limitations rule."
Mars appealed the district court’s decision arguing, among other things, that the court erred in its claim construction and in granting Heinz’s motion for summary judgment of non-infringement based on the court’s erroneous claim construction.
On review of the district courts decision, the Federal Circuit held that the court erred in its claim construction, and accordingly vacated and remanded the court’s decision of non-infringement. More specifically, the Federal Circuit held that the terms "containing" and "mixture" in the limitation "containing a mixture of lipid and solid ingredients," like "comprising," are open-ended (citing Genetech), and that the limitation does not exclude the presence of additional, unnamed ingredients in the inner core mixture that are either lipids or solids; and consistent with the Court’s construction of the term "composition" in PIN/NIP and Exxon Chemical, the ordinary meaning of the phrase "a mixture of lipid and solid ingredients" in the instant case "refers to the components of the inner component
‘at any time from the moment at which the ingredients are mixed together.’"
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