Woodrow Woods v. DeAngelo: Make a Meaningful Supplementation of Your Contention Rog Responses

By Jason Rantanen

Woodrow Woods v. DeAngelo Marine Exhaust, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 2012) Download 10-1478
Panel: Linn (author), Dyk, Reyna

Woodrow Woods, the owner of two patents relating to water jacketed marine vessel exhaust systems, and Marine Exhaust Systems, his exclusive licensee, sued DeAngelo Marine Exhaust for infringement.  During the discovery phase of the case, MES propounded an interrogatory that read "“State with specificity all prior art that anticipates such claims of one or more of the patents at issue or renders them obvious. In doing so, specify the particular claim being referred to and identify why such prior art anticipates such claims or renders them obvious.”  (emphasis added by court).  DeAngelo responded with the following statement:

“[the] interrogatory seeks attorney work-product information, and is not discoverable. DeAngelo has not yet decided which prior art references it will use to challenge the validity of the patents in suit . . . [they] shall be disclosed as required by 35 U.S.C. § 282.”

On February 8, 2010, the day before the close of discovery, DeAngelo located several old engineering drawings, which it immediately forwarded to MES, accompanied by a letter stating that "[t]hese documents arguably may anticipate the Woods invention(s), or may be relied upon as showing the state of the art in the early 1990’s," and asked whether MES would object to their use should trial begin before March 10 because otherwise DeAngelos' disclosure would violate 35 U.S.C. § 282 (requiring the disclosure of certain information relating to an accused infringer's defenses at least 30 days before trial).  MES did not immediately respond, and trial began on April 5, 2010.

During trial, MES moved under FRCP 26 and 37 to strike the drawings DeAngelo had disclosed on February 8.  The district court granted the motion, finding the disclosure and supplementation of the interrogatory response (in the form of the letter) to be untimely.  After a jury found the patents valid and infringed, the district court denied DeAngelo's renewed motions for JMOL and DeAngelo appealed.

 On appeal, the Federal Circuit rejected DeAngelo's contention that the district court had abused its discretion. While the CAFC agreed with DeAngelo that the documents in question were timely produced (they were disclosed before the close of discovery and before the thirty-day outer limit set by § 282), it disagreed that the supplementation of the interrogatory response was inadequate.  DeAngelo's communication of February 8, 2010, stated that the documents "may anticipate the Woods inventions, or may be relied upon as showing the state of the art in the early 1990’s," but this did not suffice to comply with the portion of the contention interrogatory in italics prior to the discovery deadline.  Emphasizing the important role contention interrogatories play in "helping to discover facts supporting the theories of the parties" and that they "also serve to narrow and sharpen the issues thereby confining discovery and simplifying trial preparation," Slip Op. at 11, the CAFC concluded that the district court was well within its discretion in excluding the drawings as a discovery sanction.

Additional Rulings: The Federal Circuit also rejected each of DeAngelo's other arguments (claim construction, obviousness, noninfringement, and Rule 11 sanctions).  On obviousness, the court disagreed with DeAngelo that Woods' amendment in response to an examiner rejection for anticipation qualifies as an admission that all limitations in the initial claims, existed in the prior art.  "A patent applicant is not presumed to have conceded the presence in the prior art of every claim limitation he had no reason to dispute."  Slip Op. at 25. 

The CAFC also agreed with the district court that MES and Woods had conducted an adequate pre-suit investigation, as required by FRCP 11(b).  "Here, the record is replete with evidence supporting the district court’s conclusion that MES conducted a sufficient prefiling investigation including photographing and studying photographs of DeAngelo’s accused products," slip op. at 27.  The court distinguished the inadequate investigation in Judin v. United States, 110 F.3d 780 (Fed. Cir. 1997), on the ground that MES also sought access to the products by making a direct request to DeAngelo (DeAngelo did not provide the requested information prior to the lawsuit).