Law Outlines Patent Law Outlines
Typical US Patent Law outline, contains a checklist of key issues to spot (patentability requirements, infringement, defenses, and so forth), as well as details on key cases and provisions of the patent law about all the main patent law topics. Course also emphasized policy rationales underlying patent law, which is interspersed throughout....
The following is a more accessible plain text extract of the PDF sample above, taken from our Patent Law Outlines. Due to the challenges of extracting text from PDFs, it will have odd formatting:
Claim Construction Interpretive Checklist (Philips)
Canons of Construction:
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Philips v. AWH (Fed Cir. En Banc 2005)
Interpretive Checklist; see above
Unique Concepts v. Brown (Fed Cir 1991)
Invention: Build-your-own frame with border piece
Apply the things, above.
STEPS TO GO THROUGH:
Apply to each and every separate element of the patent. Not the claim as a whole, but to each element. Does the alleged infringing product literally infringe or DoE infringe. |
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Wilson Sporting Goods v. David Geoffrey (Fed Cir 1990)
Invention: Golf ball dimple structure
Triple identity test: performing substantially the same function in substantially the same way to obtain substantially the same result
Hypothetical claim test:
Formulate claims which are just barely sufficient in scope to literally cover the accused product (this is essentially where you presume your equivalent would reach)
If PTO wouldn’t have allowed hypothetical claims over the prior art, allowing coverage under the doctrine of equivalents would be improper (since why would we grant greater breadth under doctrine of equivalents than the doctrine of equivalents allows?)
If PTO would have allowed hypothetical claims, prior art isn’t a bar to doctrine-of-equivalents infringement
Festo (US 2002, Kennedy)
Prosecution History Estoppel: use of doctrine of equivalents to reach things which were earlier disclaimed raises a presumption of invalidity, which may be overcome:
If unforeseeable at the time you disclaimed the language and wasn’t something a competent practitioner should have spotted (after-rising technolog); or
If the amendment is tangential (read: entirely unrelated) in relation to the equivalents; or
If, at time of amendment, PHOSITA could not reasonably have been expected to draft a claim that would literally encompass the equivalent in question.
Basics:
Basically doctrine of equivalents for a given element.
Apply only to purely functional limitations that do not provide structural limitations; made on an element-by-element basis.
Construed to cover corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification (and equivalents thereof at time of filing).
Single means claims (that claim all ways of doing a specified function) are invalid.
Al-Site Corp v. VSI (Fed Cir 1999)
HOLD: Using the word “means” leads to a presumption that it’s M+F claim.
M+F confines infringement to known interchangeables of the disclosure at the time of filing.
After arising technology counts under DoE but not M+F
§112 restricts M+F claims, DoE expands enforceability of claim terms
For M+F it has to perform exactly (not substantially) the same function.
Slight difference: M+F can’t reach after-rising technology; DoE can.
§ 271(b): Inducing Infringement:
§ 271(c): Contributory infringement:
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STATUTE: § 271
271(a): Standard patent infringement. Literal claim infringement
271(b) – (d): Added later because courts...
Buy the full version of these notes or essay plans and more in our Patent Law Outlines.
Typical US Patent Law outline, contains a checklist of key issues to spot (patentability requirements, infringement, defenses, and so forth), as well as details on key cases and provisions of the patent law about all the main patent law topics. Course also emphasized policy rationales underlying patent law, which is interspersed throughout....
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