"MECHANISM" = "MEANS"

Welker Bearing Company v. PHD, Incorporated, [2008-1169] (December 15, 2008) [RADER, Schall, Prost] The Federal Circuit affirmed summary judgment of non-infringement of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,786,478 and 6,913,254.
DISCUSSION: At issue was the claim limitation “by a mechanism for rotating in response to said rectilinear movement of said locating pin for moving said finger radially”, which the district court correctly construed as subject to 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6.
The Federal Circuit noted that the claim did not include the word “means,” but instead the similar word “mechanism.” This Federal Circuit reviewed its prior handling of “mechanism”. In Massachusetts Institute Of Technology v. Abacus the Federal Circuit said “[t]he generic terms ‘mechanism,’ ‘means,’ ‘element,’ and ‘device,’ typically do not connote sufficiently definite structure [to avoid means-plus-function treatment] . . . The term ‘mechanism’ standing alone connotes no more structure than the term ‘means.’” Although the Federal Circuit said that claim language that further defines a generic term like ‘mechanism’ can sometimes add sufficient structure to avoid 112 ¶ 6, the adjectival modifier “colorant selection” was not defined in the specification and did not carry any generally understood structural meaning in the art. However, in Greenberg v. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. the Federal Circuit held that paragraph 6 did not apply to the term “detent mechanism, because the noun detent denotes a type of device with a generally understood meaning in the mechanical arts, even though the definitions are expressed in functional terms.
The Federal Circuited noted that no adjective endows the claimed “mechanism” with a physical or structural component. The Federal Circuit further noted that the claim provides no structural context for determining the characteristics of the “mechanism” other than to describe its function. Thus, the Federal Circuit concluded that the unadorned term “mechanism” is “simply a nonce word or a verbal construct that is not recognized as the name of structure and is simply a substitute for the term ‘means for.’” The Federal Circuit noted a number of ways the patentee could have added structure to the limitation, but did not. Looking to the specification, the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s determination that the claim was not infringed.