The underlying dispute is a patent infringement suit in which Belden Inc. accuses CommScope Inc., CommScope Inc. of North Carolina, and CommScope Technologies LLC of infringing four patents. The claim-construction order addresses U.S. Patent Nos. 9,991,030 and 10,832,833, both of which concern the application of electromagnetic interference controlling tape for unshielded twisted pair cables. Belden is asserting ten of the seventy claims across the two patents.
The court sided with CommScope on the meaning of "continuous conductive material" in Claim 1 of the '030 patent. Belden argued the word "continuous" meant the conductive material ran uninterrupted from one end of the tape to the other along the cable's length. CommScope countered that "continuous" simply means the conductive material contains no gaps — a reading supported, the court held, by the prosecution history, in which Belden distinguished a prior art reference called Nordin precisely because Nordin disclosed conductive material with gaps between discontinuous segments. The court also noted that Belden's proposed construction would read the word "end" into claim language that only refers to "lateral edge." The court construed the term to mean the conductive material does not contain gaps.
On the seam-positioning term in Claim 11 of the '030 patent — which concerns whether the barrier tape's seam must sit above the filler arm's terminal portion at all longitudinal positions or only at some — the court again sided with CommScope, adopting CommScope's alternative proposed construction that the seam refers to the seam itself, not a portion of it. The disputed language tracks almost word for word the specification's description of Fixed Tape Control application. The court rejected Belden's argument that adopting CommScope's reading would improperly disclaim Oscillating Tape Control, citing Federal Circuit authority for the proposition that a claim need not cover all embodiments.
Belden prevailed on several of the contested terms in the '833 patent. CommScope argued that the phrase "non-conductively shielding" — appearing in Claims 10, 22, and 36 under Term 3, and in Claim 17 under a separate disputed term — was indefinite because, in the art, a shield is by definition a metallic, conductive structure, making "non-conductive shielding" a logical contradiction. The court rejected that argument, reasoning that "shielding" describes both a means (using metal) and a function (blocking EMI), and that an adjective can negate the means without negating the function. The court also rejected CommScope's argument that the word "reduce" was indefinite for lack of a stated baseline, characterizing it as a poor argument and holding that "reduce" simply means less interference than would exist absent the described configuration.
The court also rejected CommScope's proposed construction that would have required each of the non-conductive filler member and the multilayer barrier tape individually to reduce electromagnetic interference. Using a plain-language analogy, the court held that the plural verb "are configured" does not require each component to act independently — the claim covers the combined physical configuration of both components working together.
However, on a related term in Claim 22 of the '833 patent, the court sided with CommScope on a grammatical point, holding that the claim language describes the barrier portion itself — not the barrier portion acting in conjunction with other components — as configured to non-conductively shield the conductor pairs and reduce electromagnetic cross-talk.
On the final disputed term — whether "layer" in the multilayer barrier tape claims was indefinite based on prosecution history — the court agreed with Belden that the prosecution history showed only that Belden distinguished its patent from the Nordin reference by demonstrating that Nordin described a non-conductive layer surrounded by two conductive layers, whereas the '833 patent described a conductive layer surrounded by two non-conductive layers. The court held that the prosecution history did not redefine the ordinary meaning of "layer" and declined to construe the term.
The parties have five days to submit a proposed order consistent with the opinion.