The doctrine of claim differentiation may serve to enforce a broader meaning of certain claim limitations than those embodiments specifically disclosed in the specification. Here, for example, a “handpiece” design consistently described in the specification as “having a handle and a barrel” was found to more broadly encompass wand-shaped devices as well because a discrete barrel joined to the handle was the subject of a dependent claim. It may therefore be best to include dependent claims reciting non-essential details of different aspects of the claimed invention to evince a broader reading of those aspects elsewhere.
Background / Facts: The patents being asserted here are directed to pulsed lavage devices, which deliver pressurized irrigation for certain medical therapies, including orthopedic procedures and cleaning wounds. The asserted claim (claim 2) recites a “pulsed irrigation surgical handpiece” that comprises a “hollow housing,” which includes a “handle,” and, in relevant part, “an electric motor spaced between the top and bottom of said handle and located in said handle” adjacent to an irrigation tube within the housing. The specification generally describes various embodiments, all of which comprise a “hand-held housing having a handle and a barrel which extends from the upper end of the handle.” The motor in the accused device is not located in the handle per se—rather, it is located in a “nub” of the handpiece, which is a protrusion behind the barrel.
Issue(s): Whether a further dependent claim (claim 4), which separately describes both a “handle” and a “barrel,” evinces that the patentee maintained the distinction between the two parts of the handpiece.
Holding(s): No. To the contrary, the Federal Circuit agreed with the district court that “a device that met claim 2 did not need to have a discrete barrel joined to the handle, since this claim could cover wand-shaped devices that existed in the prior art in which the entire handpiece functioned like a handle and no separate barrel was joined at an angle.” Rather, “since claim 4 is a dependent claim, it could cover the pistol-shaped design described in the specification, while claim 2 would more broadly cover wand-shaped devices as well.”