Claim Construction Will Not Be Used to Decide Infringement Issues
Chamberlain Group, Inc. v. Lear Corp., No. 05 C 3449, 2006 WL 2632074 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 11, 2006) (Moran, J.)
In this claim construction opinion, Judge Moran made an interesting holding regarding the use of claim construction to resolve literal infringement issues. Defendant argued that plaintiff’s proposed constructions of “binary code” and “trinary code generator” were improperly driven by plaintiff’s infringement case. The Court noted that this was an infringement argument. The Court, therefore, would not address defendant’s argument in its claim construction opinion. This does not change my advice that you should explain why you are arguing for subtle variations of a construction. Rather, Judge Moran’s opinion illustrates that, after explaining the purpose of your proposed construction, you should be sure to ground your argument in the intrinsic and extrinsic evidence.
