Appeal No. 1999-0286 Page 6
Application No. 08/777,413
1472 (Fed. Cir. 1988). Accordingly, we will initially direct
our attention to appellant's claims 1, 4 to 6 and 9 to 19 to
derive an understanding of the scope and content thereof.
Before turning to the proper construction of the claims,
it is important to review some basic principles of claim
construction. First, and most important, the language of the
claim defines the scope of the protected invention. Yale Lock
Mfg. Co. v. Greenleaf, 117 U.S. 554, 559 (1886) ("The scope of
letters patent must be limited to the invention covered by the
claim, and while the claim may be illustrated it cannot be
enlarged by language used in other parts of the
specification."); Autogiro Co. of Am. v. United States, 384
F.2d 391, 396, 155 USPQ 697, 701 (Ct. Cl. 1967) ("Courts can
neither broaden nor narrow the claims to give the patentee
something different than what he has set forth [in the
claim]."). See also Continental Paper Bag Co. v. Eastern
Paper Bag Co., 210 U.S. 405, 419 (1908); Cimiotti Unhairing
Co. v. American Fur Ref. Co., 198 U.S. 399, 410 (1905).
Accordingly, "resort must be had in the first instance to the
words of the claim" and words "will be given their ordinary
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007