Our Patent Case Summaries provide a weekly summary of the precedential patent-related opinions issued by the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and the opinions designated precedential or informative by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board.
Moskowitz Family LLC v. Globus Medical, Inc.
No. 2024-1696 (Fed. Cir. (E.D. Pa.) Sept. 11, 2026). Opinion by Prost, joined by Schall and Stoll.
Moskowitz sued Globus for infringement of three patents that concern implant systems designed to improve spinal-fusion surgery. The parties disputed the meaning of “universal” in two of the patents (the ’913 and ’022 patents). Based on the district court’s construction of the term, Globus moved for summary judgment of noninfringement for those patents. Moskowitz responded by conceding that it could not demonstrate infringement under the court’s construction but argued that the term “universal” appears only in non-limiting preambles of the claims at issue. The district court ruled that the preambles are limiting and thus entered summary judgment for Globus.
The case proceeded to trial on the third patent (the ’319 patent), and the jury found claim 1 not infringed and not invalid. Moskowitz then appealed, challenging the district court’s grant of summary judgment, the claim construction for “universal,” and the district court’s denial of Moskowitz’s post-trial motion for judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) of infringement of the ’319 patent.
The Federal Circuit affirmed. The court began by upholding the determination that the preambles of the asserted claims of the ’913 and ’022 patents are limiting. For the ’913 patent, the Federal Circuit held that “the claim’s limitations … depend on the preamble for antecedent basis,” thus providing “a strong indication that the preamble acts as a necessary component of the claimed invention.” The court ruled that the preamble furnished “essential meaning to the claim” such that, “without considering the preamble, the claims fail to capture [an] essential characteristic.”
For the ’022 patent, the Federal Circuit similarly determined that “the claim at hand is altogether incomplete when read without the preamble,” which “recites essential structure and is necessary to give life, meaning and vitality to the claim.” Thus, the preambles of both patents were limiting.
Next, Moskowitz argued that even if the preambles are limiting, the district court erred in its construction of “universal.” The Federal Circuit disagreed. For instance, the construction did not “result in a physical impossibility by requiring a ‘one-size-fits-all’ device, as Moskowitz contends.” Instead, “the patents unambiguously describe the device as being adaptable across spinal regions and usable with multiple surgical approaches,” and “that adaptability makes the design ‘universal.’”
Lastly, the Federal Circuit affirmed the denial of Moskowitz’s post-trial motion for JMOL of infringement of the ’319 patent. At trial, the parties disputed whether the accused products satisfied a “cooperating” limitation. The Federal Circuit analyzed the evidence and expert testimony and concluded that the record “demonstrates that substantial evidence supports the jury’s finding of noninfringement.” The court therefore affirmed.