Life Spine, Inc. v. Globus Medical, Inc.

N OTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
LIFE SPINE, INC.,
Appellant
v.
GLOBUS MEDICAL, INC.,
Appellee
______________________
2024-2167
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2022-
01434.
______________________
Decided: June 4, 2026
______________________
J AMES M. G LASS, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan,
LLP, New York, NY, argued for appellant. Also repre-
sented by Q UINCY LU, Seattle, WA; D AVID A. N ELSON,
BRIANNE MCN ICHOLAS STRAKA , Chicago, IL; G EORGE
CHRISTOPHER B ECK, Foley & Lardner LLP, Washington,
DC; MICHAEL ROBERT HOUSTON, Chicago, IL; S ARAH E.
RIEGER, Milwaukee, WI.
STEPHEN D. ZINDA , Cabello Hall Zinda PLLC, Houston,
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 2
TX, argued for appellee. Also represented by J AMES H.
HALL .
______________________
Before T ARANTO, CUNNINGHAM , and STARK, Circuit
Judges.
STARK, Circuit Judge.
Life Spine, Inc. (“Life Spine”) appeals from a Final
Written Decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board
(“Board”) in an inter partes review that held claims 10-14
of Globus Medical, Inc.’s (“Globus”) U.S. Patent
No. 8,845,731 (“’731 patent”) not unpatentable.1
Life Spine’s challenge rests entirely on its disagreement
with the Board’s construction of the claim term “comple-
mentary with one another.” We agree with Life Spine’s
proposed construction. Since it is undisputed that the chal-
lenged claims are obvious under this construction, we re-
verse the Board.
I
Globus owns the ’731 patent, entitled “Expandable Fu-
sion Device and Method of Installation Thereof.” ’731 pat.
at 1:1-2. The patent is directed to an implant that may be
placed between a patient’s vertebrae to assist in spinal fu-
sion surgeries by ensuring the vertebrae are properly
spaced apart before the surgeon sets them in place. A pur-
portedly novel aspect of the device is that it is “expanda-
ble.” Id. at 1:6-10, 52-56. Unlike static counterparts, the
expandable vertebral implant may be adjusted after being
1 In the same Final Written Decision, the Board held
claims 1-9 and 15 of the ’731 patent to be unpatentable.
Neither party has challenged that determination on ap-
peal.
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 3
inserted into the patient’s spinal column, thereby making
installation easier.
To accomplish expandability, the claimed implant has
two endplates, between which are two sets of “ramped por-
tions” (or wedges) that “are complementary with one an-
other.” Id. at 22:24-26. This feature is claimed in
independent claim 10 of the ’731 patent, which recites, in
pertinent part:
An intervertebral implant comprising:
a first endplate comprising an upper side, a lower
side, a ramped surface, the ramped surface extend-
ing from the lower side, wherein the first endplate
includes a first side portion, the first side portion
including a first ramped portion; [and]
a second endplate comprising an upper side, a
lower side, a ramped surface, the ramped surface
extending from the lower side, wherein the second
endplate includes a second side portion, the second
side portion including a second ramped portion,
wherein the first ramped portion of the first end-
plate and the second ramped portion of the second
endplate are complementary with one another . . . .
Id. at 22:13-26 (emphasis added). Claims 11-14 depend
from claim 10.
At the Board, the parties disputed the meaning of the
term “complementary with one another.” Life Spine pro-
posed that the plain and ordinary meaning of the term was
broad enough to “encompass ramps having angles that mir-
ror each other,” J.A. 28 (internal quotation marks and al-
terations omitted), which its expert explained means that,
when placed over one another, the two ramps “would yield
the same angle relative to the common plane between
them” and “interact in a generally identical, symmetrical
way.” J.A. 942; see also J.A. 76-77. By contrast, Globus
agreed with the preliminary construction proposed by the
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 4
Board in its Institution Decision, which required the first
ramped portion of the first endplate and the second ramped
portion of the second endplate to “complet[e] one another.”
J.A. 38, 459, 594-97.
The Board sided with Globus, maintaining its prelimi-
nary construction, and was not persuaded that “the plain
and ordinary meaning of this claim term must encompass
surfaces that have angles that mirror one another.”
J.A. 43. Life Spine timely appealed. We have jurisdiction
pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A) and 35 U.S.C.
§§ 141(c), 319.
II
“The Board’s ultimate claim constructions and any un-
derlying determinations based on intrinsic evidence [are]
review[ed] de novo.” Polaris Innovations Ltd. v. Brent,
48 F.4th 1365, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2022). “Claim terms are
generally given their plain and ordinary meaning, which is
the meaning one of skill in the art would ascribe to a term
when read in the context of the claim, specification, and
prosecution history.” Apple Inc. v. MPH Techs. Oy,
28 F.4th 254, 259 (Fed. Cir. 2022).
III
More than two decades ago, in Phillips v. AWH Corp.,
we explained:
Because the meaning of a claim term as understood
by persons of skill in the art is often not immedi-
ately apparent, and because patentees frequently
use terms idiosyncratically, the court looks to those
sources available to the public that show what a
person of skill in the art would have understood
disputed claim language to mean. Those sources
include the words of the claims themselves, the re-
mainder of the specification, the prosecution his-
tory, and extrinsic evidence concerning relevant
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 5
scientific principles, the meaning of technical
terms, and the state of the art.
415 F.3d 1303, 1314 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc) (emphasis
added; internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
Here, our de novo consideration of the claim language,
specification, and prosecution history of the ’731 patent
persuades us that a person of ordinary skill in the art
would understand the scope of “complementary with one
another” to include ramps having angles mirroring each
other, as proposed by Life Spine.
A
“Claim construction must begin with the words of the
claims themselves.” In re Power Integrations, Inc.,
884 F.3d 1370, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2018) (internal quotation
marks and alteration omitted). The claim language at is-
sue, if considered alone, would favor the construction pro-
posed by Globus.
“[I]n determining the ordinary and customary meaning
of the claim term as viewed by a person of ordinary skill in
the art, it [can be] appropriate to consult a general diction-
ary definition of the word for guidance,” especially when
“[t]he patent specification does not assign or suggest a par-
ticular definition to the term.” Comaper Corp. v. Antec,
Inc., 596 F.3d 1343, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2010). “[H]eavy reli-
ance on the dictionary divorced from the intrinsic evi-
dence,” however, “risks transforming the meaning of the
claim term to the artisan into the meaning of the term in
the abstract, out of its particular context, which is the spec-
ification.” Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1321. Bearing that in
mind, “we do not . . . preclude the appropriate use of dic-
tionaries[,] . . . [which] are often useful to assist in under-
standing the commonly understood meaning of words.”
Id. at 1322.
The ordinary, general-language meaning of “comple-
mentary” is captured in a dictionary definition relied on by
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 6
the Board: “forming or serving as a complement; complet-
ing.” J.A. 38 (quoting J.A. 2164; internal alteration omit-
ted). That same dictionary defines a “complement” as
“[s]omething that completes, makes up a whole, or brings
to perfection,” and explicitly applies that notion to angles:
“[a]n angle related to another so that the sum of their
measures is 90 degrees.” J.A. 2164.
Moreover, the precise term in dispute is “complemen-
tary with one another.” ’731 pat. at 22:26 (emphasis
added). That language reinforces the idea that the two per-
tinent ramps should in some way complete one another to
form a whole – perhaps, but not necessarily, by having
some degree of engagement, interaction, or contact.
In these ways, the claim language supports Globus’
proposal that the ramps must “complete one another,” and
detracts from Life Spine’s proposal, which encompasses
pairs of “mirrored” ramps irrespective of whether they en-
gage with or complete one another (even when the device
is fully compressed).
B
But we do not consider the claim language in isolation.
“[T]he specification is always highly relevant and is often
the best guide to the meaning of a disputed term.” Trs. of
Columbia Univ. in City of New York v. Symantec Corp.,
811 F.3d 1359, 1365 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (internal quotation
marks and emphasis omitted). The disputed term, “com-
plementary with one another,” is not used anywhere in the
’731 patent other than in the claims. The word “comple-
mentary” is used by itself once in the specification, as fol-
lows: “The lower surfaces [of the artificial endplates] have
complementary texturing or engagement features on their
surfaces to engage with the texturing or engagement fea-
tures on the upper endplate (14) and the lower endplate
(16) of the fusion device (10).” Id. at 8:36-40 (emphasis
added). Globus contends that this sentence, and the speci-
fication in general, supports the Board’s construction.
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 7
We conclude, instead, that the specification of the ’731 pa-
tent provides strong support for Life Spine’s construction.
As one of ordinary skill in the art would understand,
the specification’s lone use of “complementary” relates to
the “surfaces” of the artificial endplates, not the “ramped
portions” of the upper and lower endplates. Id.; see also
id. at 2:61-63 & Fig. 17. Indeed, even Globus concedes that
“‘complementary’ is not used in the specification to specifi-
cally refer to ‘ramped portions.’” Globus Br. at 46. Hence,
other than vaguely suggesting that “complementary” is
used to refer to some aspect of “texturing or engagement,”
which arguably provides some minimal support to Globus’
construction,2 the specification’s sole use of “complemen-
tary” says essentially nothing about what the inventor
meant by the “ramped portions” of the endplates being
“complementary with one another.”
Other portions of the specification are far more instruc-
tive, and they support Life Spine’s construction. Most par-
ticularly, the patent discloses, in words and figures, an
embodiment that would be excluded from the claims under
Globus’ construction. Specifically, the embodiment de-
picted in Figure 40 (as well as related Figures 41-44) shows
the pertinent first ramped portion of the first endplate and
the second ramped portion of the second endplate having
mirrored angles, which would not be within the scope of the
2 If, as Globus argues, “complementary” requires
some amount of texturing or engagement, then the phrase
“complementary texturing or engagement” is redundant.
Generally, “a construction that introduces redundancy into
a claim is disfavored.” VLSI Tech. LLC v. Intel Corp.,
53 F.4th 646, 653 (Fed. Cir. 2022).
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 8
claims if those components are required to “complete one
another,” as Globus’ construction demands.3
Figure 40, reproduced immediately below, depicts “an
expandable fusion device shown in an unexpanded posi-
tion.” ’731 pat. at 4:1-4.
The specification expressly identifies the Figure 40 em-
bodiment as illustrating a “first ramped portion[] 306” and
3 Globus asks us to ignore Life Spine’s Figure 40 ar-
guments because they were supposedly not made to the
Board. As Life Spine correctly observes, however, “[t]he
doctrine of waiver does not preclude a party from support-
ing its original claim construction with new citations to in-
trinsic evidence of record.” Seabed Geosolutions (US) Inc.
v. Magseis FF LLC, 8 F.4th 1285, 1289 (Fed. Cir. 2021);
see also Medytox, Inc. v. Galderma S.A., 71 F.4th 990, 997
(Fed. Cir. 2023) (“We have held that arguments that are
based on a specification in evidence and that are in support
of an existing claim construction are not barred by the doc-
trine of waiver for the sole reason that they were not first
presented to the trial court.”) (internal quotation marks
omitted).
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 9
a “second ramped portion[] 310.” Id. at 13:28-38.4 Ele-
ments 306 and 310 are not labeled in Figure 40. But they
are shown in Figure 43, “a side exploded view of the ex-
pandable fusion device of FIG. 40.” Id. at 4:11-12.5
Figure 43 is shown below, as annotated by Life Spine
to point out the pertinent first and second ramped portions,
306 and 310, respectively.
Open. Br. at 32 (Life Spine’s annotation of Fig. 43).
4 As discussed in more detail below, Globus also ar-
gued explicitly during prosecution that the Figure 40 em-
bodiment and its associated description disclosed
“complementary” ramped portions, as described in claim
10. J.A. 1347.
5 The patent is explicit that Figures 40-44 depict the
same embodiment, in differing stages of use and from dif-
ferent perspectives. See ’731 pat. at 12:47-48 (“Referring
now to FIGS. 40-44, an alternative embodiment of the ex-
pandable fusion device 10 is shown.”).
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 10
Returning to Figure 40, we can now identify the perti-
nent first and second ramped portions:
Open. Br. at 33 (Life Spine’s annotation of Fig. 40).
As a person of ordinary skill in the art would under-
stand, the first ramped portion of the first endplate (306)
and the second ramped portion of the second endplate
(310), while mirroring one another, do not complete one an-
other in this embodiment. Globus attempts to undermine
the weight to be accorded to this by contending that an-
other portion of Figure 40, the “bridge portion (314),” con-
tains components that happen to “complete one another.”
This is shown below in a version of Figure 40 Globus anno-
tated:
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 11
J.A. 40; see also ’731 pat. at Fig. 42 (depicting “bridge por-
tion” labeled (314)).
The problem for Globus is that whether the bridge por-
tions “complete one another” is not relevant to the claim
construction dispute before us. The claim limitation at is-
sue requires not merely that there be some features that
are “complementary with one another,” but, rather, that
the “first ramped portion of the first endplate” and the “sec-
ond ramped portion of the second endplate” be so. ’731 pat.
at 22:24-26. Thus, the Board’s finding that the red arrows
in Globus’ annotated Figure 40 (above) identify the “first
ramped portion” and the “second ramped portion” of the
endplates is not supported by substantial evidence – and is
not even defended by Globus on appeal. See Oral Arg. at
16:45-17:00 (Globus counsel: “We annotated Figure 40 . . .
and we acknowledge, Your Honor, that’s not called a
‘ramped portion’ in the specification.”).
“We normally do not interpret claim terms in a way
that excludes embodiments disclosed in the specification.”
Oatey Co. v. IPS Corp., 514 F.3d 1271, 1276 (Fed. Cir.
2008). There is no support in the ’731 specification for
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 12
reading the challenged claims as excluding the expressly-
disclosed and depicted embodiment of Figure 40. Thus, be-
cause the embodiment of Figure 40 presented in the speci-
fication would be excluded from the claims under Globus’
construction of “complementary with one another,” which
requires “completing one another,” yet would be within the
scope of the claims under Life Spine’s broader “mirrored
angles” construction, the specification provides strong sup-
port for Life Spine’s proposed construction.
C
Additional support for Life Spine’s construction is
found in the prosecution history of the ’731 patent. See
Malvern Panalytical Inc. v. TA Instruments-Waters LLC,
85 F.4th 1365, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2023) (“[T]he prosecution
history can often inform the meaning of the claim language
by demonstrating how the inventor understood the inven-
tion and whether the inventor limited the invention in the
course of prosecution.”) (internal quotation marks omit-
ted). In particular, the examiner’s view of the claim scope,
which accords with our own, is entitled to some weight.
See Convolve, Inc. v. Compaq Computer Corp., 812 F.3d
1313, 1322-23 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (“In determining the scope
of the claims, we apply the traditional claim construction
principles . . . paying particular attention to the examiner’s
focus in allowing the claims after amendment.”) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
Throughout the prosecution of the ’731 patent, the ex-
aminer viewed the claims’ use of “complementary with one
another” as including mirrored angles, and as not being
limited to ramped portions that complete one another.
See, e.g., J.A. 1169 (“Biedermann discloses [an] interverte-
bral implant . . . where the first and second ramped por-
tions are compl[e]mentary with each other, wherein the
angle of inclinations are the same.”) (emphasis added);
J.A. 1209-10 (“”Olmos discloses an intervertebral implant
. . . where the first and second ramped portions are
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 13
compl[e]mentary with each other, wherein the angle of their
slants are compl[e]mentary.”) (emphasis added). Con-
sistent with this understanding, the examiner initially re-
jected the claims in view of prior art references that taught
mirrored angles, and continued to reject the claims even
after they were amended to require the ramped portions to
be complementary with one another. It was only after the
applicant amended the claims further to add limitations
having nothing whatsoever to do with “complementary” or
with the ramped portions of the endplates that the claims
were allowed, confirming that the examiner understood
“complementary with one another” to include mirrored an-
gles.
Notably, during prosecution, the applicant explicitly
directed the examiner to the embodiment of Figure 40 as
illustrative of the “complementary” ramped portions of the
amended claims. J.A. 1347 (“The claimed amendments
cover, for example, the embodiment illustrated in Fig 40 of
the present application . . . and described in its associated
disclosure.”). As we have already explained, however, Fig-
ure 40 depicts a device with mirrored first and second
ramped portions that do not “complete one another.”
A skilled artisan would not expect a patent applicant to
point an examiner to a particular embodiment disclosed in
the specification, purportedly illustrating the proposed
amended claims, if that applicant somehow intended for
that embodiment not to be within the scope of the amended
claims.
In urging a different result, Globus points to several
prior art references cited during prosecution that use the
term “complementary” to refer to components that “com-
plete one another.” See, e.g., J.A. 1437 ¶ 88 (Olmos [(U.S.
Patent App. Pub. No. 2008/0140207 A1)] disclosing “the
complementary retention structures can engage the reten-
tion structures of the inner member”); J.A. 1457 ¶ 30
(Baynham [(U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2007/0270968 A1)]
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 14
disclosing two sections that “move along the complemen-
tary inclined plane”). While Life Spine has not identified
any prior art reference that uses the term “complementary”
to refer to “mirrored angles,” Life Spine’s construction does
not exclude components that “complete one another.”
See Oral Arg. at 1:15-30 (Life Spine counsel: “We certainly
don’t disagree that it includes angles that . . . mate with
one another, like a puzzle piece. Our construction does not
exclude that.”); id. at 11:13-20 (“Again, we are not saying
that the term excludes angles that mate with one another
and complete one another.”). The uses of “complementary”
to which Globus points us are consistent with both Globus’
proposed construction and Life Spine’s, and do not under-
mine our conclusion that the prosecution history, overall,
favors Life Spine’s construction.
D
Considering the intrinsic evidence as a whole, we agree
with Life Spine that “complementary with one another,” as
used in the claims of the ’731 patent, would be understood
by a person of ordinary skill in the art to have a meaning
sufficiently broad to include a first ramped portion of a first
endplate at an angle that mirrors that of the second
ramped portion of a second endplate. Such an artisan
would not view the claims as limited to embodiments in
which those pertinent ramped portions complete one an-
other (although such embodiments are also within the
scope of the claims as properly construed). Therefore, we
disagree with the Board’s construction and adopt Life
Spine’s.
IV
We have considered Globus’ remaining arguments and
find they lack merit. Accordingly, as we are persuaded that
Life Spine’s construction of “complementary” as including
mirrored angles is correct, and, further, as Globus has
made no argument that claims 10-14 of the ’731 patent are
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LIFE SPINE, INC. v. GLOBUS MEDICAL , INC. 15
nonobvious under Life Spine’s construction, we reverse the
judgment of the Board.
REVERSED
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