The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reversed a summary judgment of invalidity, holding that the patent at issue contained an adequate written description of the claimed invention. Space Systems/Loral, Inc. v. Lockheed Martin Corporation, Case. No. 04-1501 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 20, 2005) (Newman, J.).
Loral owns a patent on a method to efficiently orient a satellite in space. The method entails the initial firing of thrusters based on information concerning past corrective thruster firings. Only after this initial firing will the remaining error in position be measured and second firing be conducted (if necessary). Positioning by this two-step process reduces the risk the satellite will overshoot its proper position (requiring it to then use more fuel to re-correct).
There was no dispute in the trial court that the first step was described in the patent, but the district court held that the second step (in which the satellite calculates the position after the first firing and performs the second firing of the thrusters) was not adequately described in the specification.
Reviewing the district court’s determination on this question of law de novo, the Federal Circuit reversed, pointing out that experts for both sides had testified that one of the figures in the patent depicted a "summer" and one of ordinary skill would understand that the "summed" matter was historical information and current actual-position information. The Federal Circuit held that this information was sufficient to constitute a written description of the second step in the claimed method.
In an unsuccessful motion for reconsideration to the district court, and again to the Federal Circuit, Loral relied on the deposition of Lockheed’s expert. Lockheed argued such reliance was improper, pointing out that it had objected to the question when asked at the expert’s deposition and that Loral failed to point to the passage in question before its reconsideration motion.
The Federal Circuit blasted through Lockheed’s concerns, holding that the question to the expert was not objectionable because the expert had answered it and that reliance on evidence not pointed out until Loral’s motion for reconsideration was not improper because the district court "specifically allowed Loral to refer to [other parts of] the deposition" in question and "the entire deposition was already before the court."
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