IP Law Daily, PATENT—Fed. Cir.: Noninfringement finding of ‘pull cord’ patents for protective vests vacated, (Mar 7, 2025)

By Brian Craig, J.D.

The district court’s construction improperly limited “pull cord” to a directly pulled cord that lacks a handle.

Concluding that the federal district court in Florida erred by interpreting “pull cord” in patents for protective vests, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has reinstated a patent infringement case brought by IQRIS Technologies LLC against Point Blank Enterprises, Inc. The Federal Circuit held the district court in Miami, Florida erred by improperly limiting “pull cord” to a directly pulled cord that lacks a handle when analyzing infringement. Because the district court’s judgment of noninfringement depended on a flawed construction, the Federal Circuit reversed and remanded the case to the district court (IQRIS Technologies LLC v. Point Blank Enterprises, Inc., No. 23-2062 (Fed. Cir. March 7, 2025)).

IQRIS Technologies owns two patents featuring a “pull cord” with clothing: U.S. Patent Nos. 8,256,020 and 7,814,567. Both patents relate to a protective garment having a front portion, a rear portion, and a quick release system having a plurality of connectors for releasably attaching the front portion to the rear portion, and a pull cord. IQRIS filed suit against Point Blank and National Molding, LLC, alleging patent infringement by Point Blank’s protective vests and body armor that incorporate National Molding’s Quad Release and Evil Twin quick-release systems. The district court in Florida granted summary judgment, concluding that the two accused products did not infringe literally or under the doctrine of equivalents. The patent owner appealed.

Claim construction. The Federal Circuit held that the district court erred with its construction of the claim term for “pull cord.” The Federal Circuit recognized a “fine line” between reading the claims in light of the specification and importing limitations from the specification into the claims, and here, where there is no evidence suggesting that the ordinary meaning of pull cord is limited to a cord that is directly pulled. The appeals court was not inclined to import limitations from the preferred embodiments into the claimed invention.

While recognizing that this case is a close question, the appeals court was not inclined under precedent to limit the term “pull cord” to the preferred embodiments in the specification. The panel ruled that the claims, not the preferred embodiments, define the metes and bounds of the patentee’s invention. The panel disagreed with the district court’s interpretation that the specification disclaims pull cords that include a handle by dispar aging prior art cutaway vests with a handle because “they entailed a tedious and time-consuming reassembly process.” The specification also explains that this is because “the cables need to be rerouted through the entire series of rings and loops throughout the vest, thereby interlocking the vest components together”—not because of the handle per se. The specification says nothing derogatory about the handle. As such, the specification cannot be reasonably viewed as a clear and unequivocal disavowal of handles. Thus, the district court erred by interpreting “pull cord” erred to exclude pull cords that include a handle when analyzing infringement.

Instructions on remand. Based on the district court’s improper claim construction, the Federal Circuit vacated the judgment of noninfringement. The Federal Circuit remanded the case to the district court to apply the correct claim construction and application in interpreting literal infringement and infringement under the doctrine of equivalents. The Federal Circuit gave no opinion whether summary judgment would be appropriate under the new construction of “pull cord.”

The Case is No. 23-2062.

Judge: Stoll, K.

Attorneys: James L. Ryerson (Greenberg Traurig LLP) for IQRIS Technologies LLC. Robert F. Fluskey, II, (Hodgson Russ LLP) for Point Blank Enterprises, Inc., and National Molding, LLC.

Companies: IQRIS Technologies LLC; Point Blank Enterprises, Inc.; National Molding, LLC

Cases: Patent FedCirNews FloridaNews