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Dictionaries Don’t Know Best: The Intrinsic Record Prevails (Again)

by | Jan 19, 2023 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit addressed the tension between the intrinsic and extrinsic record in claim construction, holding that the intrinsic record should be relied on first. The Court therefore reversed a district court finding of indefiniteness based on dictionary definitions and expert testimony. Grace Instrument Industries, LLC v. Chandler Instruments Company, LLC, Case Nos. 21-2370; -2370 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 12, 2023) (Chen, Cunningham, Stark, JJ.)

Grace owns a patent for a liquid pressurized viscometer used commonly to test the viscosity of drilling fluid that is used to drill oil wells. Grace’s viscometer uses an “enlarged chamber” between a lower chamber and a pressurization fluid inlet. According to the patent specification, this enlarged chamber was designed to reduce the measurement error in prior viscometer models that was caused by the mixing of sample fluid and pressurization fluid or by friction emanating from a seal in the viscometer. Within the lower chamber of the patented viscometer, there is a rotor having a “means for driving said rotor to rotate.”

Grace sued Chandler, claiming that Chandler infringed Grace’s viscometer patent. During claim construction, the district court found that the term “enlarged chamber” was indefinite, and that because it was a “term of degree,” it must be compared against something objective. The district court entered its final judgment in favor of Chandler. Grace appealed.

The Federal Circuit reversed, explaining that the “enlarged chamber[’s]” size did not need to be compared against any baseline object, but rather needed to be “large enough to accomplish a particular function.” The Court relied on the specification, which explained that the viscometer described in the patent reduced the mixing of sample fluid and pressurization fluid that was common in older viscometer models by using an “enlarged chamber.” The Court also cited the prosecution history, where the applicant explained that the invention solved a “long lasting problem” by reducing the measurement error caused by the friction of the seal or mixing of the fluids in older viscometer designs. Thus, the Court reasoned that a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the “enlarged chamber” must be large enough to prevent the mixing of the pressurization fluid and sample fluid to avoid the measurement errors associated with prior art viscometers.

Chandler argued that the term “enlarged chamber” was not a term of art. The Federal Circuit agreed but explained that “the intrinsic record sufficiently guides a skilled artisan as to the meaning of the term” as used in the patent. The Federal Circuit found that the district court erred in relying on a dictionary definition (extrinsic evidence) to contradict the meaning of the term found within the intrinsic record. The specification’s instructions for the meaning of a claim term should prevail over extrinsic evidence. Rebuffing Chandler’s argument, the Court explained that the specification does not need to explicitly define the claim term to govern the interpretation of that term.

The Federal Circuit remanded the case to the district court to reconsider indefiniteness in [...]

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Establishing Indefiniteness Requires More Than Identifying “Unanswered Questions” Part II

by | Oct 27, 2022 |

Earlier this year, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a district court decision for relying on an incorrect standard for indefiniteness. (Nature Simulation Systems Inc. v. Autodesk, Inc). Now, in response to a motion for panel rehearing, the Federal Circuit modified its decision on rehearing deleting language. Nature Simulation Systems Inc. v. Autodesk, Inc., Case No. 20-2257 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 17, 2022) (Lourie, Dyk, Newman JJ.) (Dyk, J., dissenting)

Nature Simulations Systems asserted two patents against Autodesk (one a continuation-in-part of the other), both entitled “Method for Immediate Boolean Operations Using Geometric Facets.” According to the patents, the claimed methods are improvements upon a “Watson” method known in the prior art. The district court concluded that two terms—“searching neighboring triangles of the last triangle pair that holds the last intersection point” and “modified Watson method”—were invalid as indefinite based on “unanswered questions” regarding the scope of the claims posed by Autodesk’s expert. In the first reported decision, the Federal Circuit reversed. The Court held that the “unanswered questions” analysis used an incorrect legal standard, citing the specification as clarifying the scope of the claims and citing case law on deference to US Patent & Trademark Office examiners.

Following rehearing, the Federal Circuit slightly modified its decision in two primary ways but maintained its reversal of the district court’s ruling on indefiniteness.

First, the Federal Circuit added an explanation regarding how the specification answers the questions raised by Autodesk. The Court stated that “the language that the court stated ‘is not contained in the claim language’ is in the specification,” and cited a flowchart and accompanying description in the patent. The Court found fault in Autodesk’s argument because “[t]he claims set forth the metes and bounds of the invention; they are not intended to repeat the detailed operation of the method as described in the specification.”

Second, the Federal Circuit backed away from its previous reliance on deference to the examiner. In its earlier decision, the Court explained that the examiner had issued rejections for indefiniteness but withdrew them after amendments to the claims. The Court then spent a little over a page of the opinion explaining that, as official agency actors experienced in the technology and legal requirements for patentability, patent examiners are entitled to “appropriate deference.” Following rehearing, the Court removed the portion of the opinion addressing examiner deference entirely while maintaining the criticism that the district court gave “no weight to the prosecution history showing the resolution of indefiniteness by adding the designated technologic limitations to the claims.” In support, the Court cited cases holding that claims are construed in light of the specification and file history from the perspective of skilled artisans.

Judge Dyk again dissented, stating that “[t]he fact that a patent examiner introduced the indefinite language does not absolve the claims from the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112.” Judge Dyk argued that far from adopting a flawed “unanswered questions” analysis, the district court’s analysis was detailed and [...]

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“Self-Similar” More Objective Than One Might Think

by | Jun 9, 2022 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a Patent Trial & Appeal Board (Board) decision holding that the term “self-similar” was not indefinite and denying leave to file a sanctions motion. ClearOne, Inc. v. Shure Acquisition Holdings, Case No. 2021-1517 (Fed. Cir. June 1, 2022) (Moore, Newman, Hughes, JJ.)

Shure owns a patent relating to arrays of microphones and housings that can be fitted to a drop ceiling grid, providing “equivalent beamwidth performance at any given look angle.” During inter partes review, Shure moved to amend the claims to add a new claim reciting microphones “arranged in a self-similar configuration.” The Board granted that motion, holding that “self-similar” was not indefinite. The Board denied ClearOne’s motion for rehearing and separate motion for sanctions alleging a failure to disclose prior that Shure had asserted in a post-grant review initiated against one of ClearOne’s patents.

The Federal Circuit first reviewed the Board’s indefiniteness holding. Since “[d]efiniteness is a matter of claim construction,” the Court applied de novo review while reviewing underlying factual determinations for substantial evidence. The Court held that the intrinsic record alone supported the Board’s definiteness finding because it provided the scope of “self-similar” with reasonable certainty. The specification disclosed microphones arranged in a “self-similar or repeating configuration”; a “fractal, or self-similar, configuration surrounding a central microphone”; and arrangements in circular or other repeating shapes, such as “ovals, squares, rectangles, triangles, pentagons, or other polygons.” Thus, “self-similar,” when read in view of the specification, informed skilled artisans about the scope of the invention with reasonable certainty.

The Federal Circuit rejected ClearOne’s argument that “self-similar or fractal-like” and “self-similar or repeating” distinguished self-similar from other types of patterns, holding that in context, it was clear that the phrases equated, not juxtaposed, self-similar with those patterns. Reviewing the extrinsic evidence, the Court also rejected ClearOne’s arguments premised upon “a series of rhetorical questions to show [ClearOne’s] varying interpretations of the self-similar term.” The possibility of varying interpretations, the Court held, “does not render [a term] indefinite,” as otherwise nearly every term would be indefinite if susceptible to alternative plausible constructions.

The Federal Circuit also rejected ClearOne’s motion for leave to seek sanctions. The Board held that allowing the sanctions motion would lead to an inefficient proceeding because the sanctions motion raised the same arguments as the denied request for rehearing, a ruling that ClearOne conceded on appeal. The Board also found a lack of intent to breach a duty to disclose references. Without analysis and applying the abuse of discretion review standard, the Court found that these factual determinations sufficiently established that the Board did not abuse its discretion.



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Establishing Indefiniteness Requires More Than Identifying “Unanswered Questions”

by | Feb 3, 2022 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit reversed a district court finding of indefiniteness for focusing solely on the language of the claims and ignoring the specification and prosecution history. Nature Simulation Systems Inc. v. Autodesk, Inc., Case No. 20-2257 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 27, 2022) (Newman, Lourie JJ.) (Dyk, J., dissenting).

Nature Simulations Systems (NSS) asserted two patents against Autodesk that relate to packaging computer-aided data for three-dimensional objects. According to the patents, the claimed methods are improvements upon a “Watson” method known in the prior art. Following a Markman hearing that included technology tutorials from the named inventor and Autodesk’s expert, the district court considered whether two terms were indefinite: “searching neighboring triangles of the last triangle pair that holds the last intersection point” and “modified Watson method.”

The district court found both claim terms indefinite based on “unanswered questions” identified by Autodesk’s expert, who had raised three and four unanswered questions for the “searching” and “modified Watson” terms, respectively. NSS argued that all of the questions were answered in the specification, but the court held that “the claim language, standing alone” did not answer those questions. NSS appealed.

The Federal Circuit found flaws in the district court’s analysis because it adopted an incorrect “unanswered questions” analysis and analyzed the “claim language, standing alone.” The Court confirmed that the test for indefiniteness involves analyzing whether the claims provide reasonable certainty when viewed in light of the specification and prosecution history from the perspective of the person of ordinary skill in the art. Reviewing the specification, the Court observed that the text and figures of the specification of the asserted patents described the searching and intersection point process and the prior art Watson method and noted that the district court “declined to consider information in the specification that was not included in the claims.”

Reviewing the prosecution history, the Court further noted that both terms had been rejected during prosecution for indefiniteness, but that the examiner withdrew both rejections after amendments to the claims provided additional limitations. The Court faulted the district court for giving “no weight to the prosecution history showing the resolution of indefiniteness by adding the designated technologic limitations to the claims.” Instead, “PTO examiners are entitled to appropriate deference as official agency actions[.]” Ultimately, the Court observed that the claims were improvements to known methods, that it was undisputed the claims were described and enabled and that the examiner had held the claims to “define the scope of the patent subject matter.” For these reasons, indefiniteness was not established as a matter of law.

Judge Timothy B. Dyk dissented, stating that “[t]he fact that a patent examiner introduced the indefinite language does not absolve the claims from the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112.” Far from adopting a flawed “unanswered questions” analysis, Judge Dyk instead believed the court’s analysis was detailed and thorough, and that it was performed in view of the specification. Judge Dyk found the majority’s definition of the disputed terms inconsistent [...]

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Means-Plus-Function Claims: Don’t Forget the “Way”

by | Oct 21, 2021 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a lower court’s findings of noninfringement, in part because the plaintiff had failed to prove the “way” element of the function-way-result test for a first means-plus-function claim, and because the specification lacked disclosure of a structure for the “way” to perform a second means-plus-function claim. Traxcell Techs., LLC v. Sprint Commc’ns Co., Case Nos. 20-1852, -1854 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 12, 2021) (Prost, J.); Traxcell Techs., LLC v. Nokia Sols. & Networks Oy, Case Nos. 20-1440, -1443 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 12, 2021) (Prost, J.)

Traxcell asserted several related patents against multiple defendants in parallel litigations. One of the patents related to self-optimizing network technology for making “corrective actions” to improve communications between a wireless device and a network (SON patent). The SON patent included two means-plus-function limitations. One of the other patents related to network-based navigation in which the network, as opposed to the wireless device, determined the device’s location (navigation patent).

Traxcell asserted the SON and navigation patents against Verizon and Sprint in one action and the SON patent against Nokia in another. In both cases, the magistrate judge entered a claim construction order construing several common terms of the asserted patents and determining that the claims of the SON patent were indefinite. The lower court adopted the magistrate’s recommendations and subsequently granted summary judgment for all three defendants on each of the patents. Traxcell appealed. The issues on appeal related to infringement and indefiniteness of means-plus-function claims.

First, Traxcell disputed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment for Sprint on the SON patent, arguing that Sprint’s accused technology included a structural equivalent to the disclosed structure under the function-way-result test. The asserted claim required a “means for receiving said performance data and corresponding locations from said tower to correcting radio frequency signals of said radio tower,” the corresponding function of which was “receiving said performance data and corresponding locations from said tower and correcting radio frequency signals of said tower.” The Federal Circuit explained that the disclosed structure of this means-plus-function limitation was a “very detailed” algorithm in the patent. Citing more than two decades of precedent, the Court emphasized that infringement of means-plus-function claims requires proof of three things: That the accused structure performs the (1) identical function, (2) in substantially the same way (3) with substantially the same result, as the disclosed structure. Because Traxcell neglected to even address at least nine steps of the algorithm, i.e., the disclosed structure, with respect to Sprint’s accused system (opting instead to focus on the function and result), the Court affirmed the lower court’s finding of noninfringement.

Second, the lower court found another claim of the SON patent indefinite based on the specification’s failure to disclose the necessary structure for its means-plus-function limitation. Traxcell did not appeal the indefiniteness finding itself, but sought leave to amend the claim to cure the indefiniteness, the denial of which Traxcell raised on appeal. The Federal Circuit explained that a “means-plus-function claim is indefinite [...]

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Employment Agreement Assignment Provisions Don’t Reach Post-Employment Inventions

by | May 6, 2021 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit rejected a biotechnology company’s argument that assignment provisions in its employment agreements granted ownership rights in post-employment inventions. Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. v. Int’l Trade Comm’n, Case No. 20-1785 (Fed. Cir. Apr. 29, 2021) (Taranto, J.)

10X filed an International Trade Commission (ITC) complaint against Bio-Rad, alleging that Bio-Rad’s microfluidic systems infringed 10X’s gene sequencing patents. Bio-Rad raised an affirmative defense alleging that it co-owned the asserted patents because two of the named inventors, formerly employed by Bio-Rad and its predecessor QuantaLife before forming 10X, conceived the ideas embodied in the patents while they were still employed by Bio-Rad. The two inventors had executed employment agreements, including provisions requiring disclosure and assignment of intellectual property created during their employment with Bio-Rad. The two inventors left Bio-Rad and formed 10X several months before the earliest conception date of the asserted patents.

The ITC administrative law judge rejected Bio-Rad’s co-ownership defense, concluding that Bio-Rad had not shown the inventive concept of the asserted patents was conceived before the inventors left Bio-Rad. The administrative law judge also found that Bio-Rad infringed 10X’s patents and that 10X satisfied the technical domestic industry requirement by practicing the asserted patents. The ITC affirmed the administrative law judge’s determinations and also found that the asserted claims were not invalid for indefiniteness. Bio-Rad appealed.

Bio-Rad argued, among other things, that the ITC erred in not finding co-ownership of the asserted patents based on the assignment provisions. Bio-Rad also contended that during their employment at Bio-Rad, the two inventors had conceived the ideas that contributed to the inventions reflected in the 10X patents, and the invention assignment provisions of their employment agreement required assignment of their interest to Bio-Rad.

The Federal Circuit affirmed the ITC. On the co-inventorship issue, the Court adopted the ITC’s conclusion and found that Bio-Rad had no ownership interest in the asserted patents, explaining that the assignment provisions did not apply to ideas developed during employment solely because the ideas ended up contributing to a post-employment patentable invention. The Court found that the language was limited to a grant of actual intellectual property, i.e., subject matter protectable as a patent created during the term of employment with Bio-Rad. The Court reasoned that a person’s work that contributes, even significantly, to a later patentable invention does not create protectable intellectual property until a patentable invention is made, and that therefore, the assignment provisions did not reach the ideas that Bio-Rad alleged were conceived during the inventors’ Bio-Rad employment.

The Court also noted policy reasons for limiting the reach of the assignment provisions, including the difficult compliance issues raised by requiring assignment of rights in post-employment inventions. The Court explained that such provisions might deter a former employee from pursuing work related to their prior work, or deter a potential future employer from hiring that individual to work in an area similar to that in which they had prior experience. The Court also agreed with the ITC’s conclusion that [...]

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Corresponding Structure Necessary to Support ‘Module’ Claim Element

by | Mar 11, 2021 |

In determining whether a claim element invoked 35 USC § 112, ¶ 6, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit concluded that “module” was a nonce term and required sufficient corresponding structure in the patent specification to avoid indefiniteness under 35 USC § 112, ¶ 2. Rain Computing, Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Case Nos. 20-1646, -1656 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 2, 2021) (Moore, J.)

Rain sued Samsung for infringement of a patent directed to a method for delivering software application packages to user terminals over a network. The claims at issue included an element that recited a “user identification module configured to control access [to] software application packages.” The district court determined that the “user identification module” was a means-plus-function term subject to 35 USC § 112, ¶ 6, but that the specification disclosed sufficient corresponding structure such that the term was not indefinite. Rain appealed the judgment of non-infringement.

Reviewing de novo, the Federal Circuit first addressed whether the claim language invoked § 112, ¶ 6. While there is a rebuttable presumption that ¶ 6 does not apply to claims lacking “means” language, the Court noted that “module” does not provide any indication of structure and is a well-known substitute for “means.” No other claim language, including the “user identification” prefix, imparted any structure onto the term. For purposes of claim construction, the specification also did not impart any structure to the claimed user identification module. Rain argued that amendments and examiner arguments during prosecution were proof of sufficient structure, and that, as the examiner noted, a means-plus-function term cannot be nested within a method claim. The Federal Circuit disagreed, noting that the examiner’s statement that a means-plus-function claim element cannot be nested within a method step was simply incorrect as a matter of law. Thus the Court found that “user identification module” was a means-plus-function claim term.

Citing to its 2015 en banc ruling in Williamson v. Citrix Online, the Court turned to the term’s construction under §112, ¶ 6, applying the same two-step process it used just a few weeks earlier in Synchronoss Technologies v. Dropbox. In the first step, the Court simply used the district court’s undisputed finding that the function was “to control access to . . . software packages to which the user has a subscription.” In the second step, the Court attempted to identify corresponding structure in the specification. Here the Court noted that structure in a specification corresponds only if there is a clear link or association, and that the specification must also disclose an actual algorithm when the function is performed by a general-purpose computer.

The Federal Circuit concluded that the district court erred in finding that the disclosure of a storage device provided sufficient structure, explaining that such devices are nothing more than general purpose computers not capable of performing the access control function without specialized software—an algorithm. Rain’s patent specification disclosed no such algorithm, without which the “user identification module” lacked sufficient structure. Thus [...]

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Impossible; Cloud Storage Patent Claims Invalid for Indefiniteness or Not Infringed

by | Feb 25, 2021 |

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed a district court’s determination that three patents directed to data synchronization were indefinite as lacking sufficient disclosed structure to support a means plus function claim element, as impossible in terms of claim scope or not infringed. Synchronoss Technologies, Inc. v. Dropbox. Inc., Case Nos. 19-2196, -2199 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 12, 2021) (Reyna, J.)

Synchronoss filed suit against Dropbox for infringement of three patents relating to synchronizing data across multiple devices connected via internet, a synchronization agent management server, and transferring media data to a network coupled device. As to the first patent, the district court found that Dropbox did not infringe because the claims, as construed, required hardware, whereas Dropbox’s accused product existed entirely in software. The district court then found that all of the claims of the second patent were invalid as indefinite under § 112, paragraph 6, since various claim terms, including “user identifier module,” did not correspond to adequate structure in the specification. Finally, the district court found that the third patent was invalid under § 112 for including within its scope an impossibility, namely, “generating a [single] media file” that “compris[es] a directory of digital media files.” Synchronoss appealed all three findings.

The Federal Circuit first addressed the claim that the district court found to include impossible scope. The Court agreed with the district court, noting that Synchronoss’s expert admitted that it was impossible for a media file to contain a directory of media files. The Court rejected Synchronoss’s argument that a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the invention actually meant something different, and noted that Synchronoss’s proposal would result in re-writing the claims to preserve their validity.

The Federal Circuit next addressed the claim including the means plus function element found to contain terms lacking adequate structure antecedent in the specification. The Court applied a two-step process to construe the “user identifier module” term, first identifying the claimed function and then determining whether the specification disclosed sufficient structure for performing the claimed function. Adopting Synchronoss’s position that the claimed function was “identifying a user,” the Court found that the specification did not disclose sufficient structure corresponding to the claimed user identifier module. The Court noted that although Dropbox’s expert identified more than 20 different possible structures that could perform the claimed function, “it is not enough that a means-plus-function claim term correspond to every known way of achieving the claimed function; instead, the term must correspond to ‘adequate’ structure disclosed in the specification such that a person of ordinary skill in the art would be able to recognize and associate the structure with the claimed function.”

Finally, the Federal Circuit addressed the district court’s finding of non-infringement. At the district court, Synchronoss proposed a construction of the claim term “device” to include “software . . . residing on . . . hardware” and conceded that its claims could not cover “software completely detached from hardware.” The Court concluded that the [...]

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Stick to the Fax: Conflicting Statements Made During Prosecution Lead to Indefiniteness

by | Feb 18, 2021 |

In deciding whether use of the term “passive link” to define a connection between a computer terminal and a fax machine rendered a patent claim indefinite, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the district court’s finding of invalidity based on conflicting statements made by the patent owner during prosecution. Infinity Computer Products, Inc. v. Oki Data Americas, Inc., Case No. 20-1189 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 10, 2021) (Prost, C.J.)

Infinity owns a patent directed to providing a circuit for interfacing a personal computer with a facsimile machine to enable the facsimile to be used as a scanner or a printer for a personal computer. The patent seeks to accomplish all of the objectives of a scanner or a printer in a simple, straightforward manner through the use of a circuit of highly simplified design and low cost. The patent claims recite that this functionality is accomplished “through a bi-directional direct connection via a passive link between the facsimile machine and the computer.” Infinity asserted the patent against Oki in district court.

The term “passive link” does not appear in the patent specification. Infinity introduced this term during prosecution to overcome rejections based on a prior art patent to Perkins. During prosecution, Infinity unsuccessfully argued that unlike Perkins, the claimed invention permits uninterrupted transfer of signals between the facsimile and the computer without the use of intervening circuitry. Infinity engaged in multiple rounds of amendment and response with the examiner before finally overcoming the rejections based on Perkins by arguing that the invention “creates a passive link between the facsimile machine and the computer [and] therefore does not require any intervening apparatus as does Perkins.” Perkins used a modem, characterized by Infinity as the “intervening apparatus,” internal to the computer. Infinity argued that the modem “should be regarded as a peripheral device to the computer which processes data before it is transmitted to the I/O bus of the computer,” effectively drawing the boundary of the “passive link” at the I/O bus of the computer.

After allowance, the patent was the subject of three ex parte re-examination proceedings. The patent was a continuation-in-part of a parent application, and in order to overcome a prior art reference asserted in the re-examination proceeding, Infinity argued that the claimed “passive link” element was entitled to the priority date of an earlier parent application. Infinity specifically noted that the patent’s description of “the RJ11 telephone cable and use thereof in communicating data between the fax machine 30 and the PC computer 40 meets the definition of ‘passive link.'” In doing so, Infinity pointed to certain figures in the parent application specification that disclosed fax modem circuitry internal to the computer, effectively drawing the boundary of the “passive link” at the computer’s external port—before the I/O bus.

The district court found that there was a discrepancy on the boundary of the “passive link” because during prosecution it was defined as at the I/O bus of the computer, but during the ex parte re-examination it [...]

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PTO: Board to Align Indefiniteness Approach in AIA and District Court Proceedings

by | Jan 21, 2021 |

On January 6, 2021, US Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) Director Andrei Iancu, Commissioner for Patents Andrew Hirshfeld and Chief Administrative Patent Judge Scott Boalick issued a memorandum to the members of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board to align the Board’s approach when deciding indefiniteness issues under 35 USC § 112 in America Invents Act (AIA) post-grant proceedings more closely with district court proceedings. The memo was issued under the PTO director’s authority to set forth binding agency guidance to govern the Board’s interpretation of statutory provisions. The memo cited to similar recent changes to the approach to claim construction in such proceedings, and stated that aligning “the indefiniteness approach [used] in AIA post-grant proceedings [to district court proceedings] will promote consistency and efficient decision making among coordinate branches of government that decide similar issues in co-pending proceedings.” The instructed approach, per the Supreme Court of the United States’ 2014 decision in Nautilus, applies to post grant review (PGR) and inter partes review (IPR) proceedings, but not to indefiniteness (or claim construction) issues decided outside the context of AIA reviews.

Post-AIA 35 USC § 112(b) (and pre-AIA § 112, second paragraph) require that “[t]he specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.” Claims not meeting this requirement are invalid for indefiniteness and may be determined indefinite during PTO examination, on appeal from examination and during AIA post-grant proceedings. In 2014 the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit approved the PTO’s long-standing approach to assessing indefiniteness during patent prosecution in its per curiam In re Packard decision that “[a] claim is indefinite when it contains words or phrases whose meaning is unclear.” At the time, this approach was used agency-wide to analyze questions of indefiniteness, in complement with the office’s broadest reasonable interpretation approach to claim construction.

Despite the Supreme Court’s decision in Nautilus that a claim is unpatentable for indefiniteness if the claim, read in light of the specification delineating the patent and the prosecution history, fails to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention, the PTO reaffirmed its intent to follow Packard in examination (whether original, appeals or reexamination). In 2018, in the interest of consistency and efficiency, the PTO changed its claim construction standard for post-grant trial proceedings to review a claim of a patent, or a claim proposed in a motion to amend, from the broadest reasonable interpretation to the same Phillips standard that would be used to construe the claim in a district court action.

The memorandum noted that there has been some confusion as to whether the Packard or Nautilus standard should apply in AIA proceedings. While parties to such proceedings argued for one or the other, neither the Board nor the Federal Circuit ruled as to which standard applied. Now, in the interest of clarity, consistency and efficiency, and to “lead to greater [...]

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