Kranos IP Corp. v. Riddell, Inc.

KRANOS IP CORPORATION, KRANOS IP II CORPORATION, andKRANOS CORPORATION, d/b/a SCHUTT SPORTS, Plaintiffs, v. RIDDELL, INC., Defendant.

Case No. 17 C 6802

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS EASTERN DIVISION

April 24, 2019

CORRECTED

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

MATTHEW F. KENNELLY, District Judge:

Kranos IP Corporation, Kranos IP II Corporation, and Kranos Corporation d/b/a Schutt Sports (collectively "Schutt") sued Riddell, Inc. for infringing three of Schutt's patents. The parties have filed cross-motions for summary judgment. For the reasons set forth below, the Court grants Riddell's motion and denies Schutt's motion.

Background

Schutt and Riddell both manufacture and sell football equipment, including helmets. Schutt owns three helmet-related patents that it alleges Riddell has infringed: U.S. Patent Nos. 9,498,014, "Protective Helmet" (the '014 patent); 8,499,366, "Helmet with Shell Having Raised Central Channel" (the '366 patent); and 6,434,755, "Helmet" (the '755 patent).

In September 2018, the Court dismissed Riddell's counterclaim, in which Riddell alleged that the '366 patent is unenforceable due to Schutt's inequitable conduct. See Kranos IP Corp. v. Riddell, Inc. (MTD Ruling), 334 F. Supp. 3d 907 (N.D. Ill. 2018). The Court also issued an opinion construing six terms in the three patents. See Kranos IP Corp. v. Riddell, Inc. (Claim Construction Ruling), 339 F. Supp. 3d 850 (N.D. Ill. 2018). The Court construed two terms that are particularly relevant to this motion: first, it held that the claim term "outer shell" requires both an inner and an outer shell; and second, it held that the term "offset" is given its plain and ordinary meaning, with the clarification that an offset can be either inward or outward.

Riddell has moved for summary judgment. It contends that the '755 patent is invalid because it is anticipated by prior art and that no reasonable jury could find that Riddell's products infringed the '014 and '366 patents. Schutt has filed a cross-motion for summary judgment of infringement on counts 1 (the '755 patent) and 3 (the '366 patent).

Discussion

Summary judgment is appropriate if the moving party "shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). Because the parties have filed cross-motions for summary judgment, the Court "view[s] all facts and inferences in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party on each motion." Lalowski v. City of Des Plaines, 789 F.3d 784, 787 (7th Cir. 2015).

The patent infringement analysis has two steps. "The first step is determining the meaning and scope of the patent claims asserted to be infringed. The second step is comparing the properly construed claims to the device accused of infringing." Duncan Parking Techs., Inc. v. IPS Group, Inc., 914 F.3d 1347, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2019). These two steps are not always strictly sequential, however, and "[d]istrict courts may engage in a rolling claim construction, in which the court revisits and alters its interpretation of the claim terms as its understanding of the technology evolves." Jack Guttman, Inc. v. Kopykake Enters., Inc., 302 F.3d 1353, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2002).

A. The '014 patent

The claims in the '014 patent include the term "outer shell." As noted above, the Court has construed "outer shell" to require both an outer and an inner shell. Riddell contends that it is entitled to summary judgment because no reasonable jury could find that the accused products—Riddell's SpeedFlex model line of helmets—have an inner shell. "[A] grant of summary judgment of noninfringement is proper when no reasonable factfinder could find that the accused product contains every claim limitation or its equivalent." Medgraph, Inc. v. Medtronic, Inc., 843 F.3d 942, 949 (Fed. Cir. 2016).

Schutt contends that there is a genuine dispute regarding whether Riddell's SpeedFlex helmets contain an inner shell. The parties agree that the helmets have a flexible liner that is designed to conform to various head shapes for comfort and stability. Riddell contends that no reasonable jury could find that that this liner constitutes an "inner shell."

1. Construction of "inner shell"

Riddell argues that in the context of football helmets and the '014 patent, a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand an "inner shell" to be a hard, protective covering that distributes an impact load. Schutt contends that the term "inner shell" more broadly refers to any thin layer enclosing a space or surrounding an object.

The parties cite expert testimony in support of each construction. Only Riddell's expert is persuasive, however, because Schutt's expert, Jonathan Posner, offers purely conclusory opinions. See Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1318 (Fed. Cir. 2015) ("[C]onclusory, unsupported assertions by experts as to the definition of a claim term are not useful to a court."). In contrast, Riddell's expert, Nicholas Shewchenko, relies on a scholarly article on the biomechanics of head trauma that explains that the function of a helmet shell is to provide a hard surface which distributes impact loads over a large area. As Shewchenko points out, this interpretation coheres with the ordinary use of the word "shell" as used in terms like "eggshell" or "clamshell," in which a hard exterior protects the interior from impact forces. Posner admitted in his deposition testimony that his broader construction would mean that a pillowcase is a shell for a pillow. The Court cannot reasonably accept such an expansive interpretation in the context of protective headwear without a reliable basis to support it.

Riddell's proposed construction finds further support in the '014 patent itself. The patent repeatedly refers to the inner shell as "hard" or "rigid." See '014 Patent, Ex. 1 to Hanewicz Decl., dkt. no. 133-1 at 15. Schutt argues that the language in the '014 patent is not dispositive because it says that a hard or rigid inner shell is "preferable," rather than required. But in the same paragraph the patent states that the "protective helmet is designed to dampen the energy of a jarring impact to the outer shell assembly before reaching the hard inner shell by reducing the g-forces." Id. The numerous references to a hard or rigid inner shell in the patent's description of the preferred embodiment evince an intent to limit the claims to a helmet that includes two hard shells. See, e.g., Boss Indus. v. Yamaha Motor Corp. U.S.A., 333 F. App'x 531, 536 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (upholding the district court's construction that was "in accordance with the entirety of each patents' intrinsic evidence," including the preferred embodiments).

Schutt also argues that a broad construction of "shell' is required under the doctrine of claim differentiation. Claim differentiation reflects a "common sense notion that different words or phrases used in separate clams are presumed to indicate that the claims have different meanings and scope." Seachange Int'l, Inc. v. C-COR, Inc., 413 F.3d 1361, 1368 (Fed. Cir. 2005). Schutt points to a parent of the '014 patent, which included claims reciting both an "inner shell" and an "inner shell [that] is a rigid shell." Amendment & Resp. to Office Action, dkt. no. 77-3 at 2. This argument is unavailing, however, because claim differentiation "does not serve to broaden claims beyond their meaning in light of the patent as a whole." Poly-America, L.P. v. API Indus., Inc., 839 F.3d 1131, 1137 (Fed. Cir. 2016). In this case, the fact that a related patent contained different claim language has little probative value in light of the clear indications in the '014 patent that the inner shell must be rigid or hard. Cf. Trs. of Columbia Univ. in City of N.Y. v. Symantec Corp., 811 F.3d 1359, 1370 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (holding that because two patents in the same family used different claim language there was "no reason to construe the terms similarly").

Schutt's final argument in support of its proposed construction relies on two unrelated helmet patents that predate the '014 patent. The first—U.S. Patent No. 6,658,671—describes an inner shell that contains both a hard outer layer and a soft inner layer. As Riddell points out, that description bears no resemblance to the flexible liner at issue in this case. The second—U.S. Patent No. 7,328,462—describes an inner shell made of polyethylene or polypropylene foam, materials that appear to be far more rigid than the flexible urethane foam used in the SpeedFlex liner. These previous patents therefore do not support Schutt's expansive construction of the term "inner shell."

It is undisputed that except for some small fasteners, the flexible liner in the accused SpeedFlex helmets is made of material that is soft and malleable. Because a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that an "inner shell" of a football helmet is hard, no reasonable jury could find that Riddell's SpeedFlex helmets contain an inner shell.

2. Doctrine of equivalents

Schutt argues that even if the flexible liner does not constitute an inner shell within the meaning of the relevant claims, there is a genuine dispute about whether the liner is the equivalent of an inner shell. "Under the doctrine of equivalents, a product or process that does not literally infringe a patent claim may nevertheless be held to infringe 'if it performs substantially the same function in substantially the same way to obtain the same result.'" Duncan Parking, 914 F.3d at 1362 (quoting Graver Tank & Mfg. Co. v. Linde Air Prods. Co., 339 U.S. 605, 608 (1950)). Schutt contends that a reasonable jury could conclude that the liner in the SpeedFlex helmets is the equivalent of an inner shell and that these helmets therefore infringe the '014 patent.

As the Supreme Court has explained, however, the doctrine of equivalents "must be applied to individual elements of the claim, not to the invention as a whole. It is important...