D. Mass. Patent Litigation Update, February 2023

In Cosy Inc. v. Dorel Juvenile Group, Inc., No. 21-cv-10134, Magistrate Judge Dein granted the plaintiff's motion for partial reconsideration on claim construction. The Court previously construed "airbag" to mean "a single, vented, deflatable chamber" and the plaintiff disputed the restriction to a "single" chamber.

On reconsideration, the Court found that the claim language was not restricted to a single chamber. The Court now held that the patent applicant had not clearly disclaimed embodiments with multiple chambers during prosecution and thus no surrender of claim scope occurred. In particular, the Court observed that during prosecution the applicant responded to a question regarding a 2-chamber airbag by conflating the term "air bag" with the term "sacrificial chamber" recited in a dependent claim In the context of the patents-at-issue, the parties agreed that "air bag" and "sacrificial chamber" should be construed separately. Therefore, the Court held that