## Facts

- Teashot.LLC owned U.S. Patent No. 5,895,672, directed to a tea-extraction container for use in single-serve brewing machines.
- Claim 1 required a tea-extraction container with a “sealed body” and an internal compartment containing tea, where the sealed body is “constructed of a water-permeable material which allows flow of a fluid through said sealed body” to produce tea extract.
- The patent description consistently associated fluid movement through the sealed body with the water-permeable material and did not describe another mechanism for fluid to pass through the container.
- Green Mountain sold accused tea-brewing K-Cups containing tea and a non-water-permeable foil lid.
- During brewing, a machine punctured the foil lid to allow hot water to enter; Teashot’s inventor admitted the foil itself was not water-permeable and puncturing did not make it water-permeable.
- Teashot sued for patent infringement in the District of Colorado.
- The district court construed the “sealed body constructed of a water-permeable material” limitation to require that the portions of the sealed body through which fluid enters and exits are made of water-permeable material, granted summary judgment of no literal infringement, and found Teashot waived any doctrine-of-equivalents theory by failing to timely disclose it under the case schedule.

## Issues

1. Whether claim 1’s “constructed of a water-permeable material which allows flow of a fluid through said sealed body” requires that fluid flow through the sealed body via the water-permeable material.
2. Under the proper construction, whether Green Mountain’s punctured-foil-lid K-Cups literally infringe.
3. Whether Teashot preserved a doctrine-of-equivalents theory or waived it by failing to timely disclose it in discovery.

## Decision

- The Federal Circuit affirmed the summary judgment of noninfringement.
- The court upheld the construction requiring that fluid flow through the sealed body via water-permeable portions of that body.
- Under that construction, the accused K-Cups did not literally infringe because fluid entered through punctures in a non-permeable foil lid rather than through water-permeable body material.
- The court upheld the waiver ruling as to the doctrine of equivalents based on untimely disclosure and inadequate development of the argument on appeal.

## Legal Principles

- Claim language that grammatically links a structural feature to a functional result may require that the function be achieved through the recited structure.
- The specification may limit reasonable claim scope when it repeatedly describes a single mechanism for performing the claimed function and does not describe alternatives.
- Failure to timely disclose an infringement theory under the doctrine of equivalents in compliance with scheduling and discovery orders can result in waiver.

## Conclusion

The Federal Circuit affirmed noninfringement because the asserted claim required fluid flow through water-permeable portions of the sealed body, while the accused products relied on puncturing a non-permeable foil lid; it also left intact the district court’s determination that the doctrine-of-equivalents theory was waived due to untimely disclosure.


Teashot.LLC v. Green Mountain Coffee Roasters, Inc., 595 F. App’x 983 (Fed. Cir. 2015)