In McCain Foods Limited v J.R. Simplot Company (2025 FC 1078), the Federal Court of Canada found that the Defendant’s use of pulsed electric fields (PEF) to pretreat potatoes before further processing into French fries did not infringe the Plaintiff’s Canadian Patent No. 2,412,841 (the “’841 Patent”). The Court found that the term “high electric field” as used in the asserted claims of the ‘841 Patent was limited to electric fields between 2-200 V/cm and did not encompass electric fields in the range of up to 1,000 V/cm or more, as typically used in PEF processing.
In the alternative, the Court found that if the asserted claims of the ‘841 Patent were construed to cover PEF processing of the sort used by the Defendant, then the asserted claims would be invalid on the basis of claim overbreadth and inutility.
The Court’s findings raise interesting points discussed in further detail below related to (i) the admissibility of expert evidence on the common general knowledge per se, (ii) claim construction, and (iii) invalidity, specifically claim overbreadth and lack of utility.
The Defendant, Simplot, was represented by Daniel Davies, Jean-Sebastien Dupont, Matthew Norton, and Emily Miller of Smart & Biggar’s litigation group.