Supreme Court “Exercises” its Muscle on Patent Clarity – Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc.
Jun 9th, 2014 by Michael Dilworth | News | Recent News & Articles |
In Nautilus, the Court deals with the complex question of patent claim construction and scope in view of the standard for definiteness (in layman’s terms, whether the patent claim is clearly written and defined in the patent disclosure). The governing statute here is the second paragraph of 35 USC § 112 (“definiteness”), which states that a patent “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”. If a patent fails to meet this requirement, the claims can be found invalid for being “indefinite”.