How easily removable must an object be to be "removable"? In a patent whose specification did not mention ease of separation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed the claim term "removably attached" should be construed to mean "merely … capable of separation." Dorel Juvenile Group, Inc. v. Graco Children’s Prods., Inc., Case No. 05-1026 (Fed. Cir. Nov. 7, 2005) (Clevenger, J.; Newman, J., dissenting).
Dorel’s patents cover a retractable cup assembled on a child’s car seat with a base "removably attached" to a seat. Graco’s accused product is a car seat molded in two segments where the top portion is attached to the bottom portion by six screws set in recessed indentations. The screws are "one-way" screws that require a special tool to be unscrewed.
The district court construed the claim term "removably attached" to mean the seat and base "are designed at some time or another to come apart." According to the district court, under the ordinary meaning of the term, the claim language did not require that the seat and base come apart during normal usage. The court held that ease of separation was not a limitation on claim scope. Nevertheless, the district court granted Graco’s motion for summary judgment of noninfringement, holding that no reasonable jury could find that the Graco product had a seat removably attached to a base.
The Federal Circuit reversed. It agreed the district court had construed the term "removably attached" properly in view of the Federal Circuit’s recent en banc opinion in Phillips v. AWH Corp. because the specification of Dorel’s patents did not mention ease of release or separation. However, the Court held that, under this construction, the two segments of Graco’s car seat were "removably attached" because they could be separated from each other (albeit only by the use of a special tool to remove six screws set in recessed indentations.) According to the Court, because Graco’s seat had a top structure and a bottom structure, it was for the jury to decide whether "the top structure is capable of functioning as a ‘seat’ upon being removed from the bottom structure."
The Federal Circuit (over Judge Newman’s vigorous dissent) vacated the summary judgment of noninfringement and remanded the case for factual finding of whether the top and bottom structures of the Graco products are the claimed "seat" and "base" of the asserted patents.
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