Federal Circuit Remands Due To Incorrect Claim Construction

In FMC Corp. v. Sharda USA, LLC, No. 2024-2335 (Fed. Cir. August 1, 2025), the Federal Circuit held that a claim term in an asserted patent cannot be construed solely based on disclosures in its provisional application and an unasserted patent in the same patent family. The Federal Circuit found that the District Court improperly narrowed the claim term "composition" of the asserted patents to encompass only "stable compositions." In particular, the Federal Circuit determined that, although the provisional application of the asserted patents and a related patent in the patent family, contained several references to "stability," such disclosures were removed from the asserted patents, and thus, it was improper to impart a "stability" limitation on the claim term. Instead, the Federal Circuit found that the District Court should have given the claim term its plain and ordinary meaning.