In an opinion addressing enablement under 35 USC 112, the US
Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that an asserted
claim was invalid because the specification failed to enable its
full scope, even though enablement as to the majority of claimed
embodiments was undisputed. Trustees of Boston University v.
Everlight Elecs. Co., Ltd., Case Nos. 16-2576, -2577, -2578,
-2579, -2580, -2581, -2582, -2591, -2592, -2593, -2594, -2595 (Fed.
Cir. July 25, 2018) (Prost, CJ).
Boston University (BU) sued Everlight for infringement of a
patent directed to the preparation of monocrystalline gallium
nitride (GaN) films via molecular beam epitaxy. The patent teaches
providing a buffer layer between the desired GaN film and a
substrate to prevent defects arising from a lattice mismatch
between the GaN film and the substrate. During claim construction,
the district court construed "a non-single crystalline buffer
layer" to mean a layer of material that is
