Canada’s Federal Court Dismisses Patent Infringement Action in a Summary Trial

In Cascade Corporation v Kinshofer GmbH, 2016 FC 1117 (October 6, 2016), Justice Southcott of the Federal Court dismissed a patent infringement action brought by Cascade Corporation against Kinshofer Gmbh and its subsidiary concerning Cascade’s Canadian Patent Number 2,587,065 and Kinshofer’s X-LOCK coupler. This case illustrates that with a suitable set of facts, for example, no allegation of patent invalidity and damages quantification having been bifurcated, it is possible to summarily adjudicate a patent infringement claim even with contentious claim construction issues.

A key legal issue for claim construction was whether it was permissible to resort to the patent disclosure.  Southcott J interpreted the principle that recourse to the disclosure “is unnecessary where the words of the claim are plain and unambiguous” to mean that such recourse is permitted only when a claimed term is ambiguous.   

Southcott J construed that the disputed element of claim 1 would require the recited hydraulic circuit, which moved the front pin safety locking device into an unlocked position, to operate independently of the back pin hydraulic locking mechanism.  Based on this construction, Southcott J concluded Kinshofer’s coupler did not infringe the patent.