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In McCain Foods Limited v. J.R. Simplot Company, 2026 FCA 71, the Federal Court of Appeal (“FCA”) dismissed McCain’s appeal from a decision of the Federal Court concerning infringement and validity of Canadian Patent No. 2,412,841 (the “841 Patent”). The parties are competitors in the frozen French fry market.
The 841 Patent claims a process for treating vegetables, most notably potatoes, using a “high electric field” to reduce resistance to cutting without preheating or cooking the product.1
In the underlying decision (2025 FC 1078), the Federal Court found that Simplot’s pulsed electric field (“PEF”) systems, operating at 1,000 volts per centimeter (“V/cm”) or more, did not infringe the asserted claims. Central to that conclusion was the Court’s construction of the term “high electric field” in Claim 1 as referring to electric fields in the range of approximately 2 to 200 V/cm, despite the claims not explicitly reciting any such range. The Federal Court further held, in the alternative, that if the claims were broad enough to capture Simplot’s technology, they would be invalid for lack of utility and overbreadth.2
McCain appealed the trial judge’s construction of the term “high electric field”, as well as the resulting findings on infringement and validity.
Claim Construction: Deference Where Expert Evidence Drives the Analysis
McCain contended that claim construction was a question of law reviewable for correctness. The FCA rejected that framing. Since the trial judge’s claim construction turn on his assessment of competing expert opinions, those findings were entitled to deference and were reviewable only for palpable and overriding error.3 No such error was established.
“High Electric Field”: Scope Determined by the Skilled Person
The Federal Court interpreted “high electric field” to refer to electric fields in the range of 2 to 200 V/cm.4 McCain argued that the Federal Court erred by improperly narrowing the claims to exclude pulsed electric fields (despite not being explicitly referenced in the claims) and importing rigid numerical limits untethered from the claim language.5 McCain raised two issues with the Federal Court’s decision: failure to consider the 841 Patent’s reference to pulsed electric fields in the description and reliance on the preferred embodiments in interpreting the claims.
The FCA concluded that the trial judge was entitled to his claim construction based on the expert evidence. The FCA upheld the trial judge’s treatment of references in the disclosure to pulsed electric fields in other contexts (such as sugar extraction), concluding that a skilled person would not “connect the dots” to import PEF technology into Claim 1 absent a clear signal in the claims or specification.6
The FCA rejected McCain’s submission that the Federal Court had impermissibly limited the claims to preferred embodiments or biological mechanisms. The Federal Court acknowledged that, while claims are not restricted to embodiments, embodiments remain relevant to purposive construction.7
Given its conclusion on claim construction and non‑infringement, the FCA found it unnecessary to address McCain’s challenges to the Federal Court’s alternative findings on utility and overbreadth.
Footnotes
1 McCain Foods Limited v. J.R. Simplot Company, 2026 FCA 71 [McCain Foods], at para. 2.
2 McCain Foods, at para. 3.
3 McCain Foods, at para. 6, citing Google LLC v. Sonos Inc., 2024 FCA 44 at para. 6, and Biogen Canada Inc. v. Pharmascience Inc., 2022 FCA 143 at para. 38.
4 McCain Foods, at para. 3.
5 McCain Foods, at para. 9.
6 McCain Foods, at para. 12.
7 McCain Foods, at para. 11.
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