Claims and Their Interpretation
Harold C. Wegner · Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks · 1992
A patent includes at least one and usually several or many claims. Each claim is a separate deed to intellectual property. One of the principal functions of each claim is to “define the scope of protection afforded by the patent. * * * [C]laims are not technical descriptions of the disclosed inventions but are legal documents like the descriptions of land by metes and bounds in a deed which define the area conveyed but do not describe the land.” In re Vamco Machine and Tool, Inc 752 F.2d 1564, 1577, footnote 5, 224 USPQ 617 (Fed. Cir. 1985). Cf. Arthur R. Miller & Michael H. Davis, Intellectual Property * * * in a Nutshell § 8.1, p. 124 (2nd ed. 1990) (“[T]he claims must be ’read on’ the accused device * * *. This merely means that the device * * * is examined to see if it is substantially described by the claims; in other words, the claims are tested to see whether they describe the accused infringement.”)