Relevant here, “examples in the specification may be used to inform [POSAs] of the scope of the invention with reasonable certainty—thus demonstrating that the term is not indefinite—without being directly construed into the claim.” Guangdong Alison Hi- Tech Co. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 936 F.3d 1353, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2019).

Entm’t Am. LLC, 669 F.3d 1362, 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (absent express disavowal or lexicography, a patentee “is free to choose a broad term and expect to obtain the full scope of its plain and ordinary meaning.”).

Extrinsic evidence confirms that Altria’s construction captures the widely-accepted understanding of “sensor.” For example, the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms defines “sensor” as “[t]he generic name for a device that senses either the absolute value or a change in a physical quantity such as temperature, pressure, flow rate, or pH, or the intensity of light, sound, or radio waves and converts that change into a useful input signal for an information-gathering system.” Ex. 1 at Altria_MDNC0000003601 (emphasis added); see also SIPCO, LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., Case No. 2:08-cv-359-JRG, 2012 WL 5195942 at *19 (E.D.

Altria proposes that “front face” and “rear face” should be given their plain and ordinary meaning, because (unlike the previous term) they are comprised of simple, common words that are readily understood by a POSA and the average juror.

Apple Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., 2012 WL 8123793, *1 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 12, 2012) (Judge Posner sitting by designation) (requiring proposed constructions to be “in ordinary English intelligible to persons having no scientific or technical background” and stating that “[t]here is no point in giving jurors stuff they won’t understand”).

Offering a powerfully satisfying vapor experience and a first-of-its-kind form factor, JUUL combines beauty and intelligent design – the hallmarks of PAX Labs – with new chemistry and patented technology to create a fundamentally different, compelling alternative to traditional cigarettes.

“There is a huge, unsatisfied demand for a product like JUUL,” said James Monsees, cofounder and CEO of PAX Labs, Inc. “The most conservative estimate is that 60 percent of smokers have tried e-cigs.

Smokers will try it and keep it, because it delivers the satisfaction they demand.” “Since launching PAX Labs, Inc. in 2007, our innovative and powerful vaporization products have consistently exceeded consumer expectation in the category and have quickly become market-leading brands,” Mr. Monsees continued.

Battery charges two times faster than the average e-cigarette Indicator light communicates battery life and pull strength Unrivaled patented technology USB charger with magnetic contact Available in four flavors: tabaac, miint, fruut, bruulé JUUL will be available for purchase in June 2015 at select stores nationwide and online at www.JUULvapor.com.

Headquartered in San Francisco, the company produces innovative premium vaporizers that provide a cleaner, modern alternative to smoking.

The small team has helped create what Pax Labs (formerly known as Ploom) is calling "an intelligently engineered and intensely satisfying new vapor experience."

For novices or fans of clean design, it's less clunky than skeuomorphic devices like Njoys, which are built to look like a cigarette, and involves fewer parts than Blu's rechargeable model.

The most alarming report came from a survey published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week, which found that e-cigarette usage was now more popular than cigarettes in middle and high schools.

Atkins, who used to smoke close to half a pack of Marlborough Reds a day, may make a good poster boy for Juul regardless.

Companies sometimes file Form D's before the round has closed and Monsees would not disclose anything about ongoing funding efforts, but he did acknowledge that Sand Hill Road hasn’t welcomed him with open wallets.

Pursuant to Local Patent Rule 104.3 and the Court’s Scheduling Order (Dkt. No. 33), Plaintiffs Altria Client Services LLC (“ALCS”) and U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company LLC (“UST”) (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) and Defendant R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company (“Defendant”) (collectively with Plaintiffs, the “Parties” or each individually, a “Party”) hereby submit their Joint Claim Construction Statement with respect to the asserted claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,798,319, 8,458,996, 8,556,070, 10,143,242, 10,264,824, 10,299,517, 10,485,269, 10,492,541, and 10,588,357.

Then, at around 5:00 pm EST on December 22, 2020 (the day before the deadline to submit this Joint Claim Construction Statement), Defendant identified Dr. John Floros as its expert witness and for the first time provided a summary of his opinions.

Defendant intends to present written and/or live expert testimony from Dr. John Floros opining that the claim term “non-hermetic seal,” read in light of the specification and the prosecution history, fails to inform with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art (“POSA”) about the scope of the alleged invention.

For example, a seal that allowed a large amount of air to pass would be contrary to the object of the patents of maintaining the freshness of the stored tobacco.

Accordingly, Dr. Floros intends to opine that the term “non-hermetic seal” as used in the claims of the ’319, ’996 and ’070 Patents, fails to inform a POSA with reasonable certainty the scope of the alleged invention.

Bite-Counter still has good recall, bul the precision is extremely low (0.03) i.e., the algorithm is generating a huge number of mis-classifications since it is picking up a substantial fraction of cases where the wrist is rotated, and detecting them as a bite.

Our mobile application caHed RisQ, uses a wristband equipped with inertial sensors to accurately count the number of cigarette puffs taken by a user and to identify the smoking session boundaries reliably.

Our evaluation using user studies showed the effectiveness of PREPP's modehng techniques in achieving high freshness for mobile apps with a low data and energy overhead.

First, our current model of Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN) can be extended to include low-level signal features extracted from the sen sor data for information fusion in order to further improve the accuracy of comext inference.

Art Unit 3742 Office Action Summary AIA (First Inventor to File) Status Yes -- The MAILING DA TE of this communication appears on the cover sheet with the correspondence address - Period for Reply

North Carolina’s number of positive tests for the virus continue to be substantial; to date more than 524,279 people in the State have contracted COVID-19, and more than 6,600 have died from the disease.

Many Clerks’ Office staff will continue to work remotely to reduce the number of employees in the courthouses, consistent with public health advisories.

Criminal proceedings involve a significant amount of close contact between all parties: courtroom personnel, counsel, witnesses, the defendants, family members, interpreters, deputy U.S.

For these reasons, the Court will continue to endeavor to hold proceedings by video-conference and tele-conference to the extent authorized by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, H.R.

Notwithstanding the above, pursuant to this Court’s Standing Order 15, as amended, which implements the CARES Act, individual Judges may schedule sentencing hearings by video-conference or tele-conference, upon the consent of the defendant after consultation with counsel and upon a finding by the presiding

Pursuant to Local Patent Rule 104.3 and the Court’s Scheduling Order (Dkt. No. 33), Plaintiffs Altria Client Services LLC (“ALCS”) and U.S. Smokeless Tobacco Company LLC (“UST”) (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) and Defendant R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company (“Defendant”) (collectively with Plaintiffs, the “Parties” or each individually, a “Party”) hereby submit their Joint Claim Construction Statement with respect to the asserted claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 7,798,319, 8,458,996, 8,556,070, 10,143,242, 10,264,824, 10,299,517, 10,485,269, 10,492,541, and 10,588,357.

Then, at around 5:00 pm EST on December 22, 2020 (the day before the deadline to submit this Joint Claim Construction Statement), Defendant identified Dr. John Floros as its expert witness and for the first time provided a summary of his opinions.

Defendant intends to present written and/or live expert testimony from Dr. John Floros opining that the claim term “non-hermetic seal,” read in light of the specification and the prosecution history, fails to inform with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art (“POSA”) about the scope of the alleged invention.

For example, a seal that allowed a large amount of air to pass would be contrary to the object of the patents of maintaining the freshness of the stored tobacco.

Accordingly, Dr. Floros intends to opine that the term “non-hermetic seal” as used in the claims of the ’319, ’996 and ’070 Patents, fails to inform a POSA with reasonable certainty the scope of the alleged invention.

The Vuse Alto Flavor Packs have no substantial non-infringing uses, are not a staple article of commerce and are specifically made and adapted for use in an infringing manner.

Moreover, Reynolds Vapor describes the Vuse line of products as an “E-cigarette brand” that provides “vapor products” that “heat our proprietary liquids and produce an aerosol, which is a vapor-like mist.” See, e.g., https://vusevapor.com/faqs (annotated in yellow):

Moreover, Reynolds Vapor states that the Vuse products “heat our proprietary liquids and produce an aerosol, which is a vapor-like mist.” See, e.g., https://vusevapor.com/faqs (annotated in yellow):

Moreover, Reynolds Vapor states that the Vuse products “heat our proprietary liquids and produce an aerosol, which is a vapor-like mist.” See, e.g., https://vusevapor.com/faqs (annotated in yellow):

The function of both the aerosol produced by the Accused Products and the claimed vapor is the same: providing a gas containing nicotine and/or other particles for the end user to inhale into the lungs.

Reynolds cannot meet its clear and convincing burden of showing that the challenged terms, “read in light of the patent’s specification and prosecution history, fail to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention.” Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc. 572 U.S. 898, 898-9 (2014).

For the reasons set forth in Altria’s opening brief and below, Altria respectfully requests that the Court reject Reynolds’s indefiniteness arguments and adopt Altria’s proposed constructions of the disputed claim terms.

In the alternative: “a seal that allows at least some of the gases created by the tobacco product to escape the container to relieve pressure” Reynolds fails to meet its clear and convincing burden of showing that “non- hermetic seal” is indefinite.

Yet, the only evidence that Dr. Floros cites to argue that “hermetic” allows some gas exchange is the last sentence from the following description in the Illustrated Glossary of Packaging (2d ed. 2008): hermetic seal Airtight or impervious to gases or fluids under normal conditions of handling and storage.

In some embodiments, the tobacco contained in the package device 100 may include portions of leaves, flowers, roots, stems, or extracts thereof of any member of the genus Nicotiana.

In some cases, archived webpages in the Wayback Machine may display a blank space, an error message, or a "broken link" icon in place of an image.

Both showed strong design savvy, which lead sometocall it “the Apple of vaping.” But it recently sold the Ploom brand nameand someofits intellectual property to Japanese tobacco conglomerate JTI in order to escape their corporate partnership.

A Salty Solution Pax hopesit can overcome marketing muscle with quality; the only wayto stand the test of time, and survive whateverregulation is coming,is to simply build somethinggreat.

The temperature of the heating coil is controlled to give you the largest possible cloud of vapor, but noneof the dangerous chemicals or compounds,like formaldehyde, that come with overheating thecoil or the juice.

And until then, those companiesare free to spend millions marketing their products, and Monsees freely admits Pax can’t compete with sexy Blu spreads in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, or NJOY’s yearly Super Bowl ad.

The small team has helped create what Pax Labs (formerly known as Ploom) is calling "an intelligently engineered and intensely satisfying new vapor experience."

For novices or fans of clean design, it's less clunky than skeuomorphic devices like Njoys, which are built to look like a cigarette, and involves fewer parts than Blu's rechargeable model.

The most alarming report came from a survey published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week, which found that e-cigarette usage was now more popular than cigarettes in middle and high schools.

Atkins, who used to smoke close to half a pack of Marlborough Reds a day, may make a good poster boy for Juul regardless.

Companies sometimes file Form D's before the round has closed and Monsees would not disclose anything about ongoing funding efforts, but he did acknowledge that Sand Hill Road hasn’t welcomed him with open wallets.

Relevant here, “examples in the specification may be used to inform [POSAs] of the scope of the invention with reasonable certainty—thus demonstrating that the term is not indefinite—without being directly construed into the claim.” Guangdong Alison Hi- Tech Co. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, 936 F.3d 1353, 1363 (Fed. Cir. 2019).

Entm’t Am. LLC, 669 F.3d 1362, 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (absent express disavowal or lexicography, a patentee “is free to choose a broad term and expect to obtain the full scope of its plain and ordinary meaning.”).

Extrinsic evidence confirms that Altria’s construction captures the widely-accepted understanding of “sensor.” For example, the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms defines “sensor” as “[t]he generic name for a device that senses either the absolute value or a change in a physical quantity such as temperature, pressure, flow rate, or pH, or the intensity of light, sound, or radio waves and converts that change into a useful input signal for an information-gathering system.” Ex. 1 at Altria_MDNC0000003601 (emphasis added); see also SIPCO, LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., Case No. 2:08-cv-359-JRG, 2012 WL 5195942 at *19 (E.D.

Altria proposes that “front face” and “rear face” should be given their plain and ordinary meaning, because (unlike the previous term) they are comprised of simple, common words that are readily understood by a POSA and the average juror.

Apple Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., 2012 WL 8123793, *1 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 12, 2012) (Judge Posner sitting by designation) (requiring proposed constructions to be “in ordinary English intelligible to persons having no scientific or technical background” and stating that “[t]here is no point in giving jurors stuff they won’t understand”).

For example, from 2000 to 2002 I consulted for Chrysalis, a Phillip Morris company, on a vapor-type inhaler for therapeutic purposes using ultrasonics and comparing particle size to devices that use vapor and smoke.

It is my understanding that when interpreting the claims of the Hawes patents, I must do so based on the perspective of one of ordinary skill in the art ( a "POSA") as of the relevant p1iority date - April 22, 2015.

On June 14, 2019, applicants filed a Request for Continuing Examination (RCE) along with an Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) identifying close to 100 references.

The cartridge has a plurality of faces that are transparent allowing a user to view the interior components, including the liquid, heating mechanism and vapor channel.

As shown for example in Figure 4, Verleur depicts the translucent body of cartornizer 200A allowing a user to view the internal components, including the compaiiment with the wick 216 and heating element 214/214A.

In disposable electronic cigarettes, the two items are combined to integrate the functions into one unit that is discarded after either the battery energy or the nicotine containing liquid is exhausted.

Many different flavors are incorpo rated into these liquids, including those that resemble the taste of regular tobacco, menthol, Vanilla, coffee, cola and/or vari ous fruits.

The portion of body 208 composed of translucent material may be alignable with win dow 130 and may be proximate to LED lights or fiber optics so as to illuminate cartomizer 200A as it is inserted into chamber 108.

For instance, pressing and holding button 118 for a certaintime period, which may be three (3) seconds, while no cartomizer is inserted may operate to reset the pro gramming to a default programming.

Such kits may further include, if desired, one or more of various compatible vapor- izers or electronic cigarettes, their components, such as for example, one or more interchangeable cartomizers, car- tomizer refills, etc., as will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art.

The device may additionally include a patterned lens cap, one or more coatings, labeling, compounds, and materials, and/or other features configured to simulate the look and feel of a lit cigarette, cigar, and/or other smoking implement.

[0009] One embodiment of the present disclosure is directed to the implementation of an electronic smoking device including a sealed multi-piece flue assembly configured to substantially reduce a risk of a user corning in contact with the bulk of an active compound (e.g., e-Iiquid, and/or other types of nicotine, flavoring, and/or other stimulants

The device may additionally include a patterned lens cap, one or more coatings, labeling, compounds, and materials, and/or other features configured to simulate the look and feel of a lit cigarette, cigar, and/or other smoking implement.

Tube 110 may be sized to simulate a conventional cigarette or cigar, for example, and/or implemented with a diameter and/or wall thickness that are sufficient to allow for press-fit and/or adhesive bonding oflens cap 112, air pressure sensor 114, adapter 120, plug 132, fiber matrix 138, and/or inhalation tip 140.

In some embodiments, orifice 142 and/or a central through hole of multi-piece flue assembly 130 may be partially or completely filled with filter material 148, for example, to help ensure bulk active compound and/or other fluids and/or particles do not reach the mouth of a user.