Last month, in Promega Corp. v. Life Technologies Corp., the Federal Circuit determined that U.S. Patent Nos. 5,843,660; 6,221,598; 6,479,235; and 7,008,771, which are owned by Promega Corp., are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, for lack of enablement, and therefore reversed the District Court's denial of a motion for summary judgment by Life Technologies Corp., Invitrogen IP Holdings, Inc., and Applied Biosystems, LLC ("LifeTech").  The Federal Circuit also determined that substantial evidence supported the jury's finding that LifeTech infringed U.S. Patent No. RE37,984 ("the Tautz patent") under both 35 U.S.C. §§ 271(a) and 271(f)(1), and therefore reversed the District Court's grant of judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of noninfringement.  In addition, the Federal Circuit affirmed the District Court's determination that certain sales of LifeTech's accused products are not covered by a license agreement between Promega and LifeTech.  Finally, finding four of the five asserted patents to be invalid, the Federal Circuit vacated the jury's damages award and remanded the case back to the District Court to determine damages for LifeTech's infringement of the Tautz patent.

The case involves five patents that relate to multiplex amplification of short tandem repeat (STR) loci (i.e., amplification of multiple STR loci in a single reaction).  In construing the asserted claims of the four patents owned by Promega, the District Court determined that a given claim recited either a "closed loci set," in which the claim was limited to only the loci listed in the claim, or an "open loci set," in which the claim was not limited to only the loci listed in the claim but rather encompassed any other loci combination that included at least the loci listed in the claim.  An example of a claim reciting a closed loci set is claim 25 of the '660 patent:

25.  A kit for simultaneously analyzing short tandem repeat sequences in at least three loci, comprising a container which has oligonucleotide primers for co-amplifying a set of at least three short tandem repeat loci, wherein the set of loci are selected from the sets of loci consisting of: [STR loci sets].

An example of a claim reciting an open loci set is claim 23 of the '598 patent:

23.  A kit for simultaneously analyzing short tandem repeat sequences in a set of short tandem repeat loci from one or more DNA samples, comprising:
    A single container containing oligonucleotide primers for each locus in a set of short tandem repeat loci which can be co-amplified, comprising HUMCSF1PO, HUMTPOX, and HUMTH01.

The District Court's construction turned on whether the claim recited "a set of . . . loci . . . consisting of . . ." or "a set of . . . loci . . . comprising . . .  ."  The distinction between the two types of claims is significant because developing a successful multiplex amplification reaction is more complicated than performing a series of separate amplification reactions.

The Tautz patent, which is owned by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften E.V. and is exclusively licensed to Promega, claims a kit for testing at least one STR locus that contains: (1) a mixture of primers; (2) a polymerizing enzyme such as Taq polymerase; (3) nucleotides for forming replicated strands of DNA; (4) a buffer solution for the amplification; and (5) control DNA.

LifeTech manufactures genetic testing kits that provide components for carrying out a multiplex amplification of STR loci from DNA samples, wherein the kits contain (1) a primer mix; (2) Taq polymerase; (3) PCR reaction mix including nucleotides; (4) a buffer solution; and (5) control DNA.

In 2010, Promega sued LifeTech for infringement of the four Promega patents and the Tautz patent, alleging that LifeTech had sold kits that were not covered by the license agreement between the parties (the license agreement limited Lifetech's use of the patents-in-suit to activities related to legal proceedings, i.e., live forensic investigations conducted by police officers).  The parties moved for summary judgment on infringement and invalidity, with the District Court denying Lifetech's enablement challenge to the Promega patents and determining that LifeTech's sales outside the license agreement's field of use were infringing.  Following trial, the jury returned a verdict of willful infringement.  LifeTech then moved for JMOL and the District Court granted the motion, finding that Promega had failed to present sufficient evidence to sustain a jury verdict under §§ 271(a) and 271(f)(1), and vacated the finding of infringement.

In an opinion by Judge Chen, joined by Judge Mayer, with Chief Judge Prost dissenting as to the majority's finding of infringement under § 271(f)(1), the Federal Circuit reversed the District Court's denial of LifeTech's motion for summary judgment of invalidity, reversed the District Court's grant of JMOL of noninfringement, affirmed the District Court's determination that certain LifeTech sales were not covered by the parties' license agreement, vacated the jury's damages award, and remanded the case back to the District Court to determine damages for LifeTech's infringement of the Tautz patent.

With respect to the issue of enablement, the Federal Circuit disagreed with Promega's characterization of unrecited STR loci in the open loci set claims as merely unrecited elements, noting that "[i]n this field of technology, introducing even a single STR locus to an existing loci multiplex significantly alters the chemistry of, and has an unpredictable effect on, whether the resulting multiplex will successfully co-amplify."  The Court indicated that "[t]here is no genuine dispute that identifying STR loci multiplexes that will successfully co-amplify is a complex and unpredictable challenge, and as a result, undue experimentation may be required to identify a successfully co-amplifying multiplex that adds even a single new locus to an existing loci combination."

The Court found support for its determination in both its MagSil Corp. v. Hitachi Global Storage Techs., Inc., 687 F.3d 1377, 1381 (Fed. Cir. 2012), and Wyeth & Cordis Corp. v. Abbott Labs., 720 F.3d 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2013), decisions.  With regard to MagSil, the Federal Circuit states that:

[W]e need not delineate the precise boundary at which Promega's claims are no longer enabled.  It is sufficient to conclude, based on Promega's own statements, that the teachings of Promega's patents would not have enabled a skilled artisan at the time of filing to identify significantly more complicated sets of STR loci combinations that would successfully coamplify -- such as those found in LifeTech's STR kits -- without undue experimentation.  Thus, like the patentee in MagSil, Promega's "difficulty in enabling the asserted claims is a problem of its own making."  687 F.3d at 1384.

As for its Wyeth decision, the Court noted that "[w]hile the claims of the Promega patents are not directed to a genus of compounds as in Wyeth, the claims at issue here similarly cover potentially thousands of undisclosed embodiments in an unpredictable field."

With respect to the issue of infringement under § 271(f)(1), the Federal Circuit began by noting that the District Court had determined that § 271(f)(1) requires (1) the involvement of another, unrelated party to "actively induce the combination of . . . components," and (2) that at least two components be supplied from the United States to satisfy the "substantial portion of the components" language of the statute.  In the instant case, the District Court determined that no other party was involved in LifeTech's assembly of the accused kits, and that Lifetech supplied only a single component from the U.S. (i.e., LifeTech manufactured the Taq polymerase component of its kits in the U.S. and shipped this component to its facility in the U.K. for incorporation into the kits).

In determining that the District Court erred in granting LifeTech's motion for JMOL, the Federal Circuit first concluded that "to actively induce the combination" does not require the involvement of a third party, noting that:

Had Congress wanted to limit "induce" to actions completed by two separate parties, it could easily have done so by assigning liability only where one party actively induced another "to combine the [patented] components."  Yet, "another" is absent from § 271(f)(1).  Instead, the focus of the statute is to induce "the combination of the components of the patented invention."

The Court also noted that:

Given Congress' choice of broadening language -- which focuses solely on the activity abroad ("the combination") rather than the actor performing the combination -- and acknowledgment of "the need for a legislative solution to close a loophole" identified in Deepsouth [Packing Co. v. Laitram Corp., 406 U.S. 518 (1972)], it is unlikely that Congress intended § 271(f)(1) to hold companies liable for shipping components overseas to third parties, but not for shipping those same components overseas to themselves or their foreign subsidiaries [citation omitted].

As for the issue of whether infringement under § 271(f)(1) requires that at least two components be supplied from the U.S., the Court stated that:

We hold that there are circumstances in which a party may be liable under § 271(f)(1) for supplying or causing to be supplied a single component for combination outside the United States.  And based on the facts of this particular case, we conclude that substantial evidence supports the jury's verdict that LifeTech is liable for infringement under § 271(f)(1) for shipping the Taq polymerase component of its accused genetic testing kits to its United Kingdom facility.

In so holding, the Court explained that "[n]othing in the ordinary meaning of 'portion' suggests that it necessarily requires a certain quantity or that a single component cannot be a 'portion' of a multi-component invention."

In dissenting from the majority's finding of infringement under § 271(f)(1), Chief Judge Prost indicated that she "read § 271(f)(1) and its requirement of active inducement to necessarily mean inducement of another" (emphasis in original), adding that "[i]ndeed, we have never before held -- in the context of either § 271(f) or § 271(b) -- that a party can induce itself to infringe."  The Chief Judge noted that "[t]wice the Supreme Court has held that inducement liability requires a third party," citing Global-Tech Appliances, Inc. v. SEB SA, 131 S. Ct. 2060 (2011), and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd., 545 U.S. 913 (2005) (an analogous copyright case), and countered that "[t]he majority cannot point to a single case -- from the Supreme Court or other wise -- that supports its contrary interpretation of inducement."

Promega Corp. v. Life Technologies Corp. (Fed. Cir. 2014)
Panel: Chief Judge Prost and Circuit Judges Mayer and Chen
Opinion by Circuit Judge Chen; dissenting-in-part opinion by Chief Judge Prost