CAFC Reverses Judgment of Indefiniteness in Crop Harvester Patent Dispute

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) today issued a precedential decision in Richard Gramm, Reaper Solutions LLC v. Deere & Company, reversing a district court’s judgment of invalidity due to indefiniteness. The court determined that the district court improperly restricted the corresponding structure of a means-plus-function claim limitation to a structure that was not necessary to perform the recited function. The court also held that no algorithm disclosure was required, since an older version of the accused structure used logic circuitry rather than a microprocessor.

U.S. Patent No. 6,202,395, held by Richard Gramm and licensed exclusively to Reaper Solutions, covers an apparatus for maintaining the header of a crop harvester at a desired height above the ground as the harvester traverses a field. Reaper Solutions filed a lawsuit in 2014 asserting that certain Deere & Company header sensor kits infringed the patent. After an inter partes review (IPR) challenge by Deere & Company and prior appellate review, only independent claim 12 and certain dependent claims remained asserted.

During claim construction in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa, the dispute focused on the meaning of “control means” in claim 12. Both sides agreed that the term is a means-plus-function limitation invoking 35 U.S.C. § 112(f). They also agreed that the claimed function is to raise and lower the header by a designated height above the soil. Furthermore, the sides agreed that the corresponding structure described in the specification includes a “controller interface 18,” “head controller 20,” and “hydraulic control system 38” in combination. The specification notes that the head controller is “conventional in design” and, in a specific embodiment, is “as incorporated in a Deere combine.”

Deere & Company argued that the disclosure of the head controller was not sufficiently definite. Expert testimony and Deere & Company’s own records established that, as of the 1997 priority date, three commercially available head controllers were used in Deere & Company combines, known as Dial-A-Matic Versions #1, #2, and #3. Deere & Company contended that Versions #2 and #3 employed microprocessors and that the specification must therefore disclose an algorithm by which the processors operate to accomplish the claimed function. Deere & Company explicitly excluded Dial-A-Matic Version #1, arguing that the specification could not possibly refer to this controller because it did not control the lateral position of the header, which the specification mentioned as a function performed by the head controller.

The district court accepted the argument that the specification does not disclose Dial-A-Matic Version #1 as a corresponding structure. It found that the reference to Versions #2 and #3 provided sufficient structure but concluded that they amount to a general-purpose computer or microprocessor. Finding that the patent fails to disclose an algorithm as part of the structure associated with the control means, the district court held the claim indefinite and entered judgment against Reaper Solutions.

Writing for the CAFC, Judge Reyna found that the district court erred by discounting the corresponding structure that performs the claimed function because it did not perform the unclaimed function of controlling the lateral position of the header. The Federal Circuit noted that the specification passage, in addition to referencing lateral position control, also describes the head controller as providing signals to control the header’s “height above the ground,” thereby providing structure for the claimed control means.

Relying on the court’s prior decisions in Wenger Manufacturing, Inc. v. Coating Machinery Systems, Inc., and Golight, Inc. v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., the Federal Circuit declined to disqualify the structure corresponding to the control means simply because it is not also capable of controlling lateral positioning. In Wenger, the court found that a district court erred by requiring structure to perform an unclaimed function in addition to the recited function, and the same principle applies here.

The Federal Circuit pointed to this erroneous identification of corresponding structure, which precipitated the district court’s conclusion that claim 12 is indefinite. Deere & Company conceded in its claim construction briefing that Dial-A-Matic Version #1 “controlled header height through a series of diodes, switches, and integrated circuits, rather than through a microprocessor.” Under the court’s precedent in Qualcomm Inc. v. Intel Corp., the reasoning for the algorithm requirement does not apply to functions implemented through circuitry. The court therefore found the district court clearly erred by excluding Dial-A-Matic Version #1 as a corresponding structure. Since “a claim is valid even if only one embodiment discloses corresponding structure,” the Federal Circuit held the district court erred by determining that the control means is indefinite.

Reaper Solutions also argued that the district court erred by failing to consider whether Dial-A-Matic Version #1 should be treated as an equivalent structure to Dial-A-Matic Version #2. The Federal Circuit rejected this argument, stating that it reflects “a fundamental misunderstanding” of precedent. The court clarified that district courts are not required to undertake an equivalent analysis during claim construction. Instead, the equivalent inquiry pertains to whether an accused product is an equivalent structure for purposes of infringement.

The CAFC reversed the district court’s indefiniteness determination, remanded the case for further proceedings, and assessed costs against Deere & Company.