Sorrell Holdings, LLC v. Infinity Headwear & Apparel, LLC

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC,
Plaintiff-Appellant
v.
INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC,
Defendant-Appellee
______________________
2022-1964
______________________
Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Western District of Arkansas in No. 4:16-cv-04019-BAB,
Chief Magistrate Judge Barry A. Bryant.
______________________
Decided: February 5, 2024
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G AVIN B. P ARSONS , Coats & Bennett, PLLC, Cary, NC,
argued for plaintiff-appellant. Also represented by D AVID
E. BENNETT ; ROBERT K ATZ, Katz PLLC, Dallas, TX.
MARTIN A. K ASTEN, Friday, Eldredge & Clark, LLP, Lit-
tle Rock, AR, argued for defendant-appellee. Also repre-
sented by K AEL K. BOWLING, MARSHALL N EY , Rogers, AR.
______________________
Before S TOLL , CUNNINGHAM , and STARK, Circuit Judges.
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SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.
INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC
2
STOLL , Circuit Judge.
Sorrell Holdings, LLC appeals the final judgment of
the United States District Court for Western District of Ar-
kansas in favor of Infinity Headwear & Apparel, LLC, find-
ing noninfringement of Sorrell’s U.S. Patent No. 6,887,007.
Sorrell challenges the district court’s construction of cer-
tain claim terms, as well as the court’s grant of attorney’s
fees and costs to Infinity for a discovery violation. Because
we conclude that the district court erred in its claim con-
struction and that the district court did not abuse its dis-
cretion in awarding attorney’s fees and costs, we affirm-in-
part, vacate-in-part, and remand.
BACKGROUND
Sorrell’s ’007 patent relates to hand-held washing de-
vices, or loofahs. As show in patent figure 10 below, the
washing device contains a “scrubber 20 made of an elon-
gated mesh material gathered together to form a plurality
of pleats.” ’007 patent, col. 2 ll. 35–37.
Id. Fig. 10.
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SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.
INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC
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A “cinch 30 extends around and holds the pleats to-
gether.” Id. at col. 2 ll. 37–38. The scrubber can include a
handle which could serve as a fluid dispenser 44 and be
“given an aesthetically pleasing shape.” Id. at col. 3 ll. 27–
30, col. 5 ll. 17–18.
Claim 11 is the only claim at issue in this appeal, and
recites:
11. A washing device comprising:
a scrubber made of a foraminous material
and gathered to form a pleated ball;
a figurative handle coupled to the scrubber;
and
a cinch for binding the foraminous material
into the pleated ball and forming a loop ex-
tending around at least a portion of said
handle to secure the handle to the scrub-
ber.
Id. at col. 6 ll. 27–35 (emphases added to highlight dis-
puted limitations).
Sorrell filed suit against Infinity, alleging that Infin-
ity’s MascotWear™ product infringed claim 11 of the ’007
patent. The district court construed the term “cinch” to
mean a “string, elastic band, or metal band which does not
directly contact the user when bathing” and the term “fig-
urative handle” to mean “a figure, resemblance, or likeness
which is designed especially to be grasped by the hand.”
Sorrell Holdings, LLC v. Infinity Headwear & Apparel,
LLC, No. 4:16-cv-04019, 2018 WL 4356601, at *3–6
(W.D. Ark. Sept. 12, 2018) (Claim Construction Order).
A month before trial, in October 2021, Sorrell produced
various documents it intended to use at trial, including, for
the first time, the assignment of the ’007 patent to Sorrell.
Infinity moved to exclude all documents that were not dis-
closed prior to the April 3, 2020 discovery cutoff deadline.
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SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.
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The district court granted the motion. Because the assign-
ment was not produced prior to the discovery cutoff dead-
line, Sorrell moved to allow entry of the assignment and
maintenance fee statements, which the district court de-
nied. Infinity then filed a motion to dismiss on the ground
that Sorrell could not prove standing without the assign-
ment. The district court denied the motion to dismiss and
instead continued the trial so that Infinity could conduct
discovery regarding the assignment. The district court also
granted Infinity’s motion for attorney’s fees and costs asso-
ciated with the continuance.
Following trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of
Infinity, finding noninfringement of the ’007 patent and
the district court entered judgment accordingly. Sorrell ap-
peals. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(1).
D ISCUSSION
On appeal, Sorrell challenges the district court’s claim
constructions of the terms “cinch” and “figurative handle”
and the district court’s grant of attorney fees and costs to
Infinity. We address each issue in turn.
I
We start by addressing the district court’s claim con-
structions of the terms “cinch” and “figurative handle.” We
review a district court’s claim construction based solely on
intrinsic evidence de novo. See Teva Pharm. USA, Inc.
v. Sandoz, Inc., 574 U.S. 318, 331 (2015).
The district court erred by reading in limitations from
the ’007 patent specification when interpreting the term
“cinch” to require that it does not directly contact the user.
We start with the claim language and the claim language
here does not state that the cinch does “not directly contact
the user,” as required by the district court’s claim construc-
tion. See Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312
(Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc) (“[T]he claims are ‘of primary im-
portance, in the effort to ascertain precisely what it is that
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SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.
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is patented.’” (quoting Merrill v. Yeomans, 94 U.S. 568, 570
(1876))). As for the district court’s reliance on the specifi-
cation, we have repeatedly held that courts should not read
limitations from the specification into the claims. See
Liebel-Flarsheim Co. v. Medrad, Inc., 358 F.3d 898, 904
(Fed. Cir. 2004) (“[I]t is improper to read a limitation from
the specification into the claims.”) (citations omitted); see
also Teleflex, Inc. v. Ficosa N. Am. Corp., 299 F.3d 1313,
1326 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (“That claims are interpreted in light
of the specification does not mean that everything ex-
pressed in the specification must be read into all the
claims.”) (citation omitted). While the specification does
state that the “cinch 30 . . . do[es] not directly contact the
user when bathing with the device 10 as it may be abrasive
or otherwise uncomfortable to the user,” ’007 patent, col. 3
ll. 51–53, this is in a paragraph referring to specific embod-
iments. See id. col. 3 ll. 28–55 (referencing “another em-
bodiment,” “[i]n one embodiment,” and “[i]n another
embodiment”). In our view, a person of ordinary skill in
the art would understand this statement as describing a
preferred embodiment and not defining “cinch” or disclaim-
ing all cinches that do contact the user. See Liebel-
Flarsheim Co., 358 F.3d at 913 (“[I]t is improper to read
limitations from a preferred embodiment described in the
specification—even if it is the only embodiment—into the
claims absent a clear indication in the intrinsic record that
the patentee intended the claims to be so limited.”) (cita-
tions omitted); Bayer AG v. Biovail Corp., 279 F.3d 1340,
1348 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (“[A] court may not read into a claim
a limitation from a preferred embodiment, if that limita-
tion is not present in the claim itself.”). As such, without
this additional no-contact requirement, a “cinch” should be
construed as a string, elastic band, metal band, or similar
fastening device.
The district court also erred in its construction of the
term “figurative handle.” Specifically, the court’s construc-
tion erroneously required that the figurative handle be
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SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.
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“designed especially to be grasped by the hand,” which im-
properly suggested a design intent requirement. Claim
Construction Order, 2018 WL 4356601, at *4. Direct in-
fringement has no intent element and for an “accused de-
vice[] to be infringing, [it] need only be capable of
operating” in the infringing manner. Intel Corp. v. U.S.
Int’l Trade Comm’n, 946 F.2d 821, 832 (Fed. Cir. 1991). Ac-
cordingly, the “figurative handle” should be construed
without the intent element as a figure, resemblance, or
likeness which can be grasped by the hand.
As the trial substantially concerned whether Infinity’s
accused device satisfied the “cinch” and “figurative handle”
limitations as construed by the district court, we find both
claim construction errors prejudicial and thus vacate the
district court’s judgment of noninfringement and remand
for further proceedings under the correct claim construc-
tion.
II
We turn to the district court’s grant of attorney’s fees
and costs. In reviewing the district court’s discovery rul-
ings and grant of sanctions, “we are guided by regional cir-
cuit law.” Drone Techs., Inc. v. Parrot S.A., 838 F.3d 1283,
1297 (Fed. Cir. 2016). In the Eighth Circuit, discovery rul-
ings and imposition of sanctions are reviewed for an abuse
of discretion and relief is granted only “where the errors
amount to gross abuse of discretion resulting in fundamen-
tal unfairness.” Vallejo v. Amgen, Inc., 903 F.3d 733, 742
(8th Cir. 2018) (citation omitted); Greyhound Lines, Inc.
v. Wade, 485 F.3d 1032, 1035 (8th Cir. 2007).
We conclude that the district court did not abuse its
discretion in awarding attorney fees and costs to Infinity
when Sorrell failed to produce the patent assignment until
a month before trial. After noting that Sorrell’s nondisclo-
sure was inadvertent and that Sorrell’s lawyer candidly ad-
mitted that he did not have an excuse for the failure to
disclose, the district court delayed trial by sixty days. The
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SORRELL HOLDINGS, LLC v.
INFINITY HEADWEAR & APPAREL, LLC
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district court determined that under these circumstances,
a lesser sanction of “fees and costs associated with [the]
continuance” would be preferable to excluding the assign-
ment altogether, which would have resulted in dismissal.
J.A. 1039. We cannot say that the district court abused its
discretion by awarding the costs and fees. While it is true
that the ’007 patent assignment is a public record and the
record below includes evidence suggesting that Infinity
knew of the assignment, it is also true that Sorrell did not
comply with its discovery obligations and the district court
issued lesser sanctions in light of these facts.
We also do not view the district court’s mistaken refer-
ence to production of the assignment just three days prior
to trial as clear error. Rather, we view this as a stray (al-
beit incorrect) comment in light of the fact that elsewhere,
both the court and the parties correctly recognized that the
assignment was produced a month prior to trial. Thus, we
affirm the district court’s grant of attorney’s fees and costs
to Infinity.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district court’s
grant of attorney’s fees, vacate the district court’s judgment
of noninfringement, and remand for proceedings consistent
with this opinion.
AFFIRMED-IN-PART, VACATED-IN-PART, AND
REMANDED
COSTS
No costs.
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