United States Supreme Court

In a patent infringement suit alleging that defendant, without obtaining a license, sold exercise machines containing plaintiff's patented technology for a heart-rate monitor used with exercise equipment, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals erred in concluding that plaintiff's patent survived indefiniteness review under its articulated standard, where: 1) a patent is invalid for indefiniteness if its claims, read in light of the patent's specification and prosecution history, fail to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention; 2) definiteness is to be evaluated from the perspective of a person skilled in the relevant art, claims are to be read in light of the patent's specification and prosecution history, and definiteness is to be measured as of the time of the patent application; 3) the Federal Circuit’s standard that a patent claim passes the threshold so long as the claim is "amenable to construction," and the claim, as construed, is not "insolubly ambiguous," does not satisfy the Patent Act's definiteness requirement; and 4) the matter must be remanded so that the Federal Circuit can reconsider, under the proper standard, whether the relevant claims in the subject patent are sufficiently definite.

Appellate Information

• Decided 06/02/2014
• Published 06/02/2014

Judges

• GINSBURG

Court

• United States Supreme Court

Counsel