{"id":2851,"date":"2020-06-25T10:51:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-25T15:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=2851"},"modified":"2020-07-19T14:16:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-19T19:16:00","slug":"federal-circuit-explains-when-you-can-ignore-the-words-before-the","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=2851","title":{"rendered":"Federal Circuit explains when you can ignore the words before the “:”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In Shoes by Firebug LLC v. Stride Rite Children’s Group<\/a>, [2019-1622, 2019-1623] (June 25, 2020), the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB\u2019s determination that the challenged claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 8,992,038 and 9,301,574, directed to illumination systems for footwear, were obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most interesting part of the case is one that made no difference to the outcome: when a preamble limits a claim and when it doesn’t. A preamble limits a claim if it recites essential structure or steps, or if it is necessary to give life, meaning, and vitality to the claim. Conversely, a preamble is not limiting where a patentee defines a structurally complete invention in the claim body and uses the preamble only to state a purpose or intended use for the invention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The body of claim 1 of the \u2019038 patent recites a structurally complete invention, and therefore the preamble\u2019s recitation of an \u201cinternally illuminated textile footwear\u201d is merely an intended purpose that does not limit the claims. A preamble is not limiting \u2018where a patentee defines a structurally complete invention in the claim body and uses the preamble only to state a purpose or intended use for the invention. Unlike claim 1 of the \u2019038 patent, claim 1 of the \u2019574 patent does not reintroduce \u201cfootwear\u201d in the body of the claim but instead relies on the instance of \u201cfootwear\u201d introduced in the preamble for \u201cantecedent basis.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But it makes no difference: Although the Board did not construe the preamble as limiting, the prior \u201csuggests using a woven, porous material in a light diffusing, internally illuminated part of footwear,\u201d making the claims of both patents obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Small differences in working can make a big difference in interpretation; decide whether you want the preamble to be a limitation and word the application and specification accodingly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Shoes by Firebug LLC v. Stride Rite Children’s Group, [2019-1622, 2019-1623] (June 25, 2020), the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB\u2019s determination that the challenged claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 8,992,038 and 9,301,574, directed to illumination systems for footwear, were … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,104,105],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-claim-constructino","category-preambe","category-preamble"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2853,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2851\/revisions\/2853"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}