Docket: 24-2335 

Opinion Date: August 1, 2025

Judge: Raymond Chen

FMC Corporation owns U.S. Patent Nos. 9,107,416 and 9,596,857, which relate to insecticidal and miticidal compositions. FMC sued Sharda USA, LLC for patent infringement, alleging that Sharda’s product, WINNER, infringed on these patents. The patents claim compositions comprising bifenthrin and a cyano-pyrethroid, with specific weight ratios. FMC sought a preliminary injunction to prevent Sharda from importing, marketing, selling, or distributing WINNER.

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania initially denied FMC’s motion for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. However, the court issued a claim construction of the term “composition,” limiting it to stable compositions based on disclosures in the provisional application and a related patent. FMC renewed its motion, and the district court granted a temporary restraining order, which converted into a preliminary injunction. The court rejected Sharda’s invalidity defenses, including anticipation and obviousness, based on the construed definition of “composition.”

The United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reviewed the case. The court found that the district court erred in its construction of “composition” by limiting it to stable compositions, as the asserted patents did not include the stability disclosures present in the provisional application and related patent. The Federal Circuit held that “composition” should be given its plain and ordinary meaning. Consequently, the court found that the district court’s anticipation and obviousness analyses were flawed due to the erroneous claim construction.

The Federal Circuit vacated the preliminary injunction and remanded the case for further proceedings, instructing the district court to reconsider Sharda’s invalidity defenses under the correct claim construction. The court emphasized that Sharda only needed to raise a substantial question of invalidity to defeat the preliminary injunction.