U.S. Filter Corp appealed from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California’s final judgment that the asserted claims of its U.S. Patent 6,620,319 were not invalid as anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102. 
| The patent-at-issue described systems for the microfiltration of liquids. The ’319 patent disclosed the use of a vertical skein used to collect permeate from the ends of its fibers. The patent further disclosed the importance of keeping the surface of the fibers free of particular matter in order to ensure the free flow of permeate over an extended period of time. To achieve this objective, the patent disclosed use of a cleansing gas discharged near the base of a skein to produce bubbles in a specified size and amount to scrub the fibers. The ’319 patent was the sixth patent to issue in a series of connected applications and Zenon claimed that it was entitled to the priority date of the ’373 patent. The Federal Circuit found that because the intervening patents failed to incorporate by reference the gas distribution system disclosed in the ’373 patent, that the chain of priority was broken and consequently the ’319 patent was not entitled to the ’373 patent’s earlier filing date. The Federal Circuit examined the reference language and found it insufficient to give one reasonable skilled in the art notice of the gas distribution system disclosed in the ’373 patent. The incorporation by reference language from the ’250 patent stated that The vertical skein is not the subject matter of this invention and any prior art vertical skein may be used. Further details relating to the construction and deployment of a most preferred skein are found in the parent U.S. Pat. No. 5,639,373, and in Ser. No. 08/690,045, the relevant disclosures of each of which are included by reference thereto as if fully set forth herein. The Federal Circuit noted that the ’373 patent’s written description of a vertical skein which consisted of three distinct elements – fibers, a pair of headers, and a permeate collection means, precluded a skein from including a gas distribution system. Thus, because the ’250 patent failed to incorporate by reference, with sufficient particularity to one reasonably skilled in the art, the gas distribution system disclosed in the ’373 patent, a lack of continuity of disclosure existed in the family chain and the ’319 patent was not entitled to the filing date of the ’373 patent. As consequence, because the ’373 patent disclosed each and every limitation of the claims of the ’319 patent and was filed more than a year prior to the ’319 patent, the ’319 patent was anticipated by the ’373 patent and thus invalid. |