of cells that were cultured" (Paper 50, p. 19) is consistent with the examiner's allowance of the
claims amended to require the use of cells that are both proliferating and have been expanded in
culture.
Thus, we hold that the limitation in Stice's claims requiring "a proliferating somatic cell that
has been expanded in culture" was necessary to the patentability of Stice's claims and is a material
limitation.
Next we turn to whether Strelchenko's precritical date claims include thi s material limitation!
Strelchenko's pre-critical date claims require the use of totipotent cells as the donor cells.
Thus, the issue reduces to whether Strelchenko's totipotent cell limitation is the same orstibstantially
the same subject matter as Stice's proliferating somatic cell limitation. In order to make this
determination we must construe each party's claims.
A.
To construe claim language, we begin with the words of the claim. Interactive Gift Express,
Inc. v, Compusme, Inc., 256 F.3d 1323, 1331, 59 USPQ2d 1401, 1406-07 (Fed. Cir. 2001). As a
general rule, claim language carries the ordinary meaning of the words in their normal usage in the
field of invention. Toro Co. v. VArite Consol. Indus., 199 F.3d 1295, 1299, 53 USPQ2d 1065, 1067
(Fed. Cir. 1999). After looking to the claim language we consider the rest of the intrinsic evidence,
that is, the written description and the prosecution history. Interactive Gift Express, 256 F.3d at
13 31, 59 USPQ2d at 1406-07. There is a "heavy presumption"that a claim term takes on its ordinary
meaning. Texas Digital Systems, Inc. v. Telegenix, Inc. 308 F.3d 1193, 1202, 64 USPQ2d 1812,
1817 (Fed. Cir. 2002). It is well settled that dictionaries provide evidence of a claim term's
11ordinary meaning." Texas Digital Systems, 308 F.3d at 1202, 64 USPQ2d at 1018; CCS Fitness,
Inc. v. Brunswick Corn., 288 F.3d 1359, 1366, 62 USPQ2d 1658, 1662 (Fed. Cir. 2002), (citing
Rexnord Cori). v. Laitrain Co1p., 274 F.3d 1336, 1344, 60 USPQ2d 1851, 1855 (Fed. Cir. 2001)).
Such dictionaries include dictionaries of the English language, which in most cases will provide the
proper definitions and usages, and technical dictionaries, encyclopedias and treatises, which may be
used for established specialized meanings in particular fields of art. The inventor may act as his own
lexicographer and use the specification to supply implicitly or explicitly new meanings for terms.
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