August Technology Corporation and Rudolph Technologies, Inc. v. Camtek, Ltd.

Summarized by:

  • Court: Intellectual Property Archives
  • Area(s) of Law: Patents
  • Date Filed: 08-22-2011
  • Case #: 2010-1458
  • Judge(s)/Court Below: U.S. Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit; Before: Dyk, Moore, and O’Malley
  • Full Text Opinion

In determining the claim construction of a term within a patent the court will consider a ambiguous term to be defined by language within the claim or preamble and will note distinctions within the language of the claim; in order to have an on sale bar the invention must have been conceived at the time of the offer for sale.

For full opinion:
2011 U.S.App.LEXIS 17451
2011 WL 3659357

Opinion (Moore): Camtek, Ltd. (“Camtek”) appealed the district court decision holding U.S. Patent No. 6,826,298 (‘298 patent) owned by August Technology Corporation and Rudolph Technologies, Inc. (“August”) infringed by Camtek. The Court of Appeals found that the district court erred and remanded the case to the district court to decide if there was infringement with the corrected claim construction. Camtek challenged the district court’s construction of the terms “wafer” and “strobes … based on velocity.” The Court of Appeals examined the language of the claims and found that the district court’s construction of “wafer” as including portions of a single discrete wafer was incorrect, the correct construction being that a wafer is a single discrete object since the claims made a distinction between “wafer” and “wafers.” The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s construction of “strobes … based on velocity” being that the strobe light of the ‘298 patent was at least partially based on the wafer’s velocity and stated that the strobing limitation did not need to be included on retrial. In addition the Court of Appeals found that the ‘298 patent was not obvious from prior art and August’s NSX-80 wafer inspection machine may have caused an on sale bar depending on the date of conception. The Court stated that to be considered on sale the invention must have been conceived at the time of the offer for sale and stated that the jury trial must decide if August’s NSX-80 was conceived of a year prior to the ‘298 patent application. AFFIRMED-IN-PART, VACATED-IN-PART and REMANDED.

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