Appeal 2007-2127
Reexamination Control No. 90/006,621
CLAIM INTERPRETATION
Issue
The first step in any patentability analysis is to interpret the claims.
The issue is the meanings of the claim terms "threads" and "multithreading."
Principles of law
The words of a claim are generally given their "ordinary and
customary meaning" where "the ordinary and customary meaning of a claim
term is the meaning that the term would have to a person of ordinary skill in
the art in question at the time of the invention, i.e., as of the effective filing
date of the application." Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1313,
75 USPQ2d 1321, 1326 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc). "Because the meaning
of a claim term as understood by persons of skill in the art is often not
immediately apparent, and because patentees frequently use terms
idiosyncratically, the court looks to 'those sources available to the public that
show what a person of skill in the art would have understood the disputed
claim language to mean.' Those sources include 'the words of the claims
themselves, the remainder of the specification, the prosecution, and extrinsic
evidence concerning relevant scientific principles, the meaning of technical
terms, and the state of the art.'" (Citations omitted.) Id. at 1314,
75 USPQ2d at 1327. The claims, the specification, and the prosecution
history are "intrinsic evidence." All evidence external to the patent and
prosecution history, such as dictionaries and treatises, and expert testimony,
is "extrinsic evidence." After the claims, the patent's specification is "the
single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term." Id. at 1315,
75 USPQ2d at 1327 (quoting Vitronics Corp. v. Conceptronic, Inc.,
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