Life Spine v. Globus Medical — Federal Circuit Reverses PTAB, Invalidates Spinal Implant Patent on Claim Construction

Background

Globus Medical owns U.S. Patent No. 8,845,731, which covers an expandable intervertebral implant used in spinal fusion surgeries. Unlike static implants, the patented device can be adjusted after insertion into a patient’s spinal column, making installation easier. The implant uses two endplates with “ramped portions” that are described as “complementary with one another.”

Life Spine filed an inter partes review challenging claims 10–14 of the patent as obvious. The dispute turned entirely on the meaning of “complementary with one another.” Life Spine argued the term is broad enough to include ramps with mirrored angles—where the two ramped portions have the same angle relative to a common plane. Globus argued (and the PTAB agreed) that “complementary” requires the ramps to “complete one another,” like interlocking puzzle pieces. Under the PTAB’s narrow construction, the prior art did not render the claims obvious.

The Court’s Holding

The Federal Circuit reversed the PTAB, adopting Life Spine’s broader construction of “complementary with one another.”

Reviewing de novo, the court found that while dictionary definitions of “complementary” might favor Globus’s reading, the intrinsic evidence told a different story. The specification’s Figure 40—which the applicant specifically directed the examiner to during prosecution as illustrative of the amended claims—depicts a device with mirrored ramped portions that do not interlock or “complete” one another. The court reasoned that a patent applicant would not point an examiner to an embodiment it intended to exclude from the claims.

The prosecution history reinforced this conclusion. The examiner initially rejected the claims in view of prior art that taught mirrored angles and continued to do so even after the claims were amended to require “complementary” ramped portions—indicating the examiner understood the term to encompass mirrored-angle configurations. It was only after the applicant added entirely unrelated limitations that the claims were allowed.

Because Globus made no argument that claims 10–14 are nonobvious under Life Spine’s construction, and it was undisputed that the prior art renders them obvious under that reading, the court reversed the Board’s judgment: the claims are unpatentable as obvious.

Key Takeaways

• Prosecution history can override dictionary definitions. Even when a plain-language dictionary favors a narrower construction, the applicant’s own statements and the examiner’s actions during prosecution can broaden a claim term’s scope.
• Pointing the examiner to a specific embodiment creates a strong inference. When an applicant tells the examiner that an amended claim “covers, for example, the embodiment illustrated in Fig. 40,” a court will infer that embodiment falls within the claim scope.
• All five challenged claims invalidated. Claims 10–14 of the ’731 patent are unpatentable as obvious. Claims 1–9 and 15 were already found unpatentable in the same IPR, unchallenged on appeal.

Why It Matters

For medical device patent holders, this case is a reminder that claim construction battles at the PTAB can turn on seemingly mundane terms. Globus’s patent survived the PTAB’s review only because of a narrow reading of “complementary”—a reading the Federal Circuit rejected based on the patent’s own prosecution history. The decision underscores that applicants’ statements to examiners during prosecution carry real weight and can come back to broaden claims in ways that make them vulnerable to prior art.