{"id":3568,"date":"2023-10-19T22:41:37","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T03:41:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=3568"},"modified":"2023-12-12T17:42:26","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T23:42:26","slug":"the-reference-back-the-language-takes-its-meaning-singular-or-plural-from-the-meaning-of-the-antecedent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/?p=3568","title":{"rendered":"The Reference-Back \u201cthe\u201d Language Takes its Meaning (Singular or Plural) from the Meaning of the Antecedent"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

ABS Global, Inc., Genus Plc, v. Cytonome\/ST, LLC<\/em>, [2022-1761]<\/a> (October 19, 2023), the Federal Circuit reversed the Board\u2019s finding of no unpatentability of claims 1 and 8 of U.S. Patent No. 10,583,439, and vacated the decision of no unpatentability of claims 2, 6, and 9.\u00a0 The \u2019439 patent, titled \u201cHydrodynamic Focusing Apparatus and Methods,\u201d describes and claims a microfluidic device for \u201cparticle\u201d processing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Board determined that, as a matter of claim construction, \u201cthe sample stream\u201d language in claim 1 had a singular-only meaning, not allowing a plurality of streams or a split stream.\u00a0 The Board also rejected ABS\u2019s obviousness challenges, and their reasoning depended on their claim construction that claim 1 required that there be only a single stream, precluding a split one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Federal Circuit rejected the PTAB\u2019s construction, explaining that the specific claim language at issue is \u201ca fluid focusing region configured to focus the sample stream.\u201d The use of the definite article, \u201cthe,\u201d means that the phrase \u201cthe sample stream\u201d refers back to earlier language as an antecedent. The antecedent language is \u201ca sample stream\u201d in the preceding limitation, and it is the singular-only or plural- allowing meaning of that limitation which is determinative.\u00a0 The reference-back \u201cthe\u201d language takes its meaning from the meaning of the antecedent, so if \u201ca sample stream\u201d has a plural-allowing meaning, so does the reference-back \u201cthe sample stream\u201d phrase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Federal Circuit said two familiar aspects of claim-construction analysis strongly support the plural-allowing meaning here. First, \u201cat least in an open-ended \u2018comprising\u2019 claim,\u201d like claim 1 of the \u2019439 patent, \u201cuse of \u2018a\u2019 or \u2018an\u2019 before a noun naming an object\u201d requires that the phrase be construed to mean \u201c\u2018one or more\u2019 unless the context sufficiently indicates otherwise.\u201d  Second, the specification here states: \u201c[F]or the purposes of the present disclosure, the term \u2018a\u2019 or \u2018an\u2019 entity refers to one or more of that entity. As such, the terms \u2018a\u2019 or \u2018an\u2019, \u2018one or more\u2019 and \u2018at least one\u2019 can be used interchangeably herein.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Federal Circuit found no sufficient basis for rejecting the plural-allowing meaning of \u201ca sample stream\u201d here. The prosecution history has not been shown, or even meaningfully argued, to do so. Nor does anything in the specification supply a clear and manifest disavowal of that meaning, or totally negate it.  In particular, the singular only meaning is not demanded by the specification\u2019s embodiments, described as nothing more than examples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABS Global, Inc., Genus Plc, v. Cytonome\/ST, LLC, [2022-1761] (October 19, 2023), the Federal Circuit reversed the Board\u2019s finding of no unpatentability of claims 1 and 8 of U.S. Patent No. 10,583,439, and vacated the decision of no unpatentability of … 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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3568","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=3568"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3568\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3569,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3568\/revisions\/3569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/patents.harnessip.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}