EMD Millipore Corp. v. Allpure Technologies, Inc.
Addressing a district court's summary judgment of
infringement, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
affirmed the district court's summary judgment, finding that
the accused device did not literally infringe the asserted claims
and that prosecution history estoppel precluded application of the
doctrine of equivalents. EMD Millipore Corp. v. Allpure
Technologies, Inc., Case No. 14-1140 (Fed. Cir., Sept. 29,
2014) (Prost, J.).
Plaintiff Millipore owned a patent directed to a device for
introducing or withdrawing a sample from a container without
contaminating the contents of the container. The single
independent claim at issue was directed to a device that includes,
among other things, "at least one removable replaceable
transfer member" composed of several component parts: a
"holder," a "seal" and a "hypodermic
needle." The "seal" component of the transfer
member included "a first end comprised of a
