Patent Appeal Decisions Carve Out Lessons on Claim Language

Two recent decisions from the nation’s patent appeals court offer valuable lessons in crafting language in patent applications, practitioners say.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit handed a win to AT&T Mobility LLC and Ericsson Inc. Aug. 12 after analyzing language in a communications patent. The appeals court nixed a win for Toro Co. in another Aug. 12 decision after finding a U.S. Patent and Trademark Office administrative tribunal erred in analyzing a patent’s claims.

The decisions are “great examples of cases at opposite ends of the spectrum” in illustrating why practitioners “have to be careful in ...