Knobbe Martens partners Jeremiah Helm and Sean Murray explored the Federal Circuit’s opinion on patent claim construction in Netflix Inc. v. DivX LLC in their latest Law360 column on the court’s recent noteworthy decisions.
The decision relates to the nuances of patent claim language and claim construction, specifically in instances where two interpretations of claim language are equally plausible. In this case, the Federal Circuit’s interpretation rested on the meaning of the modifier “within”, prompting the court to consult English grammar conventions and claim-drafting principles to determine the appropriate claim construction for the patent at issue.
Helm and Murray offer several takeaways for patent prosecutors and patent litigators based on the outcome of Netflix. For instance, they suggest adhering as closely as possible to the “nearest-available-modificand” grammatical rule in patent claim drafting to avoid ambiguity. They also emphasized that a patent’s specification may not be able to overcome the grammatical construction approach announced in the opinion.
Read the full article here.
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