Source: https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/claim-construction-or-statutory-construction
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 22:10:55+00:00

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Chiang and Solum’s conclusions concerning uncertainty in claim construction—that claim construction debates are debates over construction, not interpretation, and that the core policy debate concerns patent scope—are persuasive. However, in applying the interpretation-construction distinction, Chiang and Solum should be more attentive to the institutional context in which patent claim construction occurs. Unlike in constitutional law, where judges operate within a broad “construction zone”22 and outcomes are “essentially driven by normative concerns,”23 in patent law, judges do not construct patent claims in isolation. Instead, their actions are constrained by the Patent Act’s requirements. At a conceptual level, the Patent Act restricts judges’ discretion during claim construction. The Act establishes minimum standards of disclosure that patentees must meet when drafting claims.24 Under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a), a patent claim is legally invalid if it is not supported by a specification that includes, at minimum, details of the invention that are sufficient to permit “any person skilled in the art” to make and use it.25 Under § 112(b), a claim is invalid if it does not conclude with “one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or joint inventor regards as the invention.”26 Regardless of whether a judge adopts a “textualist” or “anti-textualist” approach to claim construction, he or she must enforce these minimum standards of disclosure when deciding what a patent’s claims mean.
This is not to say that, in practice, debates over policy do not enter into claim construction and affect outcomes. To the contrary, even though these requirements are statutory, judges have very different views about how much disclosure or definiteness the law requires, and they engage in significant statutory construction when defining the precise contours of § 112. This is consistent with the perception that patent law, like other areas of intellectual property law, evolves largely through the common law method. As Craig Nard puts it, the Patent Act serves as the “enabling statute,” leaving “ample room” for courts to fill in gaps and generate explanatory doctrine.27 We argue that what Chiang and Solum identify as “construction,” as opposed to “interpretation,” of patent claims is better understood as statutory construction of § 112, which, in turn, influences how judges construct claims. On this view, differences of opinion over the precise contours of the disclosure requirement—not an adherence to different methodologies of textual analysis—cause uncertainty in claim construction outcomes.
In Parts I and II, we illustrate this subtle, but important distinction between claim construction, in Chiang and Solum’s terminology, and statutory construction. In Part I, we show that several of the cases Chiang and Solum analyze using the interpretation-construction distinction appear to be the direct result of judicial disagreements over whether § 112(a) contains a separate “written description” requirement. In Part II, we suggest that judicial understandings of § 112(b)’s definiteness requirement have also historically influenced judges’ claim construction decisions, representing another example of statutory construction influencing how judges construe claims. Although, like Chiang and Solum’s, our evidence is limited to individual cases, our analysis suggests that statutory construction of § 112 may be partly responsible for the uncertainty in claim construction outcomes motivating Chiang and Solum’s project. In Part III, we discuss the implications of this statutory view of claim construction for the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Teva addressing whether claim construction is a question of law or fact and the amount of deference that should be granted to lower courts’ claim construction decisions.
In other words, the Phillips dissent narrowed the claim because the claim did not, in their reading of § 112(a), meet the statute’s requirements; the Phillips majority broadened the claim due to their perception that it did. This is a debate over statutory construction. Classifying it simply as “claim construction” versus “claim interpretation,” while this might be analytically accurate, misses the meat of what the debate was about—namely, how much disclosure does the Patent Act require?
Retractable Technologies, Inc. v. Becton, Dickenson & Co.45offers a more recent example of the same phenomenon. As in Phillips, the judges’ constructions of the claim term, “body,” mirrored their constructions of § 112(a). Judge Lourie, now writing for the majority and joined by Judge Plager, concluded that “body” referred to only a one-piece syringe body because “a construction of ‘body’ that limits the term to a one-piece body is required to tether the claims to what the specifications indicate the inventor actually invented.”46 This language, although written in the context of claim construction, precisely tracks Judge Lourie’s language in Ariad explaining that the specification must contain a written description of the invention in addition to an enabling disclosure. In his concurring opinion, Judge Plager agreed with Judge Lourie’s view that the court should seek to construe claims in accordance with what the patentee “actually invented,” and he made the connection between this standard and § 112(a)’s written description requirement explicit, writing that “claims cannot go beyond the actual invention that entitles the inventor to a patent. For that we look to the written description.”47 “[M]ore stringent rules,” he concluded, were “need[ed]” to “control” “the curse of indefinite and ambiguous claims, divorced from the written description . . . .”48 In Judge Plager’s view, and likely those of some members of the majority, the “actually invented” standard for claiming and the written description requirement for disclosure go hand in hand.
As just explained, Chiang and Solum’s illustrations of “claim construction” and “claim interpretation” in cases like Phillips and Retractable55 are better read as disagreements over the proper construction of § 112(a). Section 112(b)’s definiteness requirement presents another example of statutory construction’s influence on claim construction.
Chiang and Solum cite Merrill to support their conclusion that most linguistic ambiguity can be “resolved through interpretation” using ordinary interpretive tools.72 We emphasize instead the role of the definiteness requirement in influencing the Court’s construction of the claim at issue. The Court was not only concerned with resolving linguistic ambiguity, but also with the effects of this ambiguity on public rights.73 Upon considering the public goals underlying the amended definiteness requirement, the Court rejected the petitioner’s construction because it was inconsistent with those goals.
To us, Merrill suggests that judges’ understandings of the meaning and purpose of § 112(b)’s definiteness requirement, like their understandings of § 112(a)’s written description requirement, can affect their claim construction decisions and result in divergent claim construction outcomes. Again, framing this disagreement over statutory meaning as one over “claim construction” versus “claim interpretation” misses what the debate was about—namely, how definite § 112(b) requires claims to be. As discussed in the next Part, it also ignores an important pathway for resolving the debate—clarifying § 112(b)’s meaning or amending the statute.
III. is claim construction a question of law?
Our view, which recognizes the role of statutory construction in influencing claim construction, partially aligns with Chiang and Solum’s. Although we agree with the Teva petitioners that claim construction involves many factual issues,83 we also see legal issues lurking in judges’ claim construction decisions. Admittedly, the precise boundary between fact and law is very difficult to determine in this context.84 However, we identify at least two significant legal questions over which judges currently disagree and which appear to affect claim construction outcomes.
Our view also leads us to be less pessimistic than Chiang and Solum about the prospect of deference to district courts on issues that do not clearly involve statutory construction. The authors argue that giving district courts an open-ended license to construe claims based on their policy preferences would increase uncertainty and disuniformity,with “hundreds of district court judges across the nation each following their own individually preferred methodologies in the individual cases that come before them.”90 However, if, as we have suggested, the disagreements over claim construction methodology that concern Chiang and Solum are really disagreements over § 112’s disclosure and definiteness requirements, then resolving those legal disagreements should theoretically guide district courts during claim construction and increase certainty in claim construction outcomes. This, of course, would require the Federal Circuit and the Supreme Court to agree on a claim construction standard and district courts to decide cases consistently under this standard, but agreement and consistency would be needed regardless of the standard of review. If the courts are not up to the task, then Congress can amend the statute to provide greater clarity. This is how patent law has historically progressed,91 and, we believe, this is how lawmaking should work within a well-functioning statutory framework.
Chiang and Solum’s article is a welcome example of cross-disciplinary legal scholarship, and their framework is useful for shedding light on the policy debates underlying claim construction decisions. However, applying the interpretation-construction distinction to patent law requires taking into account the statutory context in which claim construction is performed. In this Response, we have argued that the debate the authors identify—between “textualist” and “anti-textualist” approaches to claim construction—is better classified as a debate over statutory construction, with judges construing claims in light of their divergent constructions of § 112’s disclosure and definiteness requirements. We have shown that recognizing the prevalent role of statutory construction in framing judicial debates during claim construction is consistent with case history and leads to several useful suggestions for improving certainty in claim construction outcomes and resolving whether claim construction is a question of law or fact. Most importantly, it provides a clearer and more optimistic framework for improving the law of claim construction than Chiang and Solum provide. The fact that a statute limits both patentees’ discretion in drafting claims and judicial discretion in construing claims distinguishes patent law claim construction from constitutional construction, where clear rules and consensus are neither possible nor necessarily desirable.
Camilla Hrdy is the Center for Technology, Innovation and Competition Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and a Visiting Fellow at the Yale Information Society Project. Ben V. Picozzi is a member of the Yale Law School J.D. Class of 2016 and a Student Fellow at the Yale Information Society Project. They would like to thank T.J. Chiang for his generous comments on this Response and for traveling to New Haven to discuss his article with the authors and other members of the Patent Law Reading Group on December 12, 2013. They would also like to thank Erica Newland and the other editors at the Yale Law Journal for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this Response.
Preferred Citation: Camilla Hrdy & Ben V. Picozzi, Claim Construction or Statutory Construction?: A Response to Chiang & Solum, 124 Yale L.J. F. 208 (2014), http://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/claim-construction-or-statutory-construction.
Chiang & Solum, supra note 2, at 534.
See Chiang & Solum, supra note 2, at 573, 607.
Id. at 1329-30 (Lourie, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part).
See Chiang & Solum, supra note 2, at 569.
See Krause & Auyang, supra note 18, at 595.
Solum, supra note 6, at 108.
See 35 U.S.C. § 112 (2012).
Id. § 112(a); see also infra Part I.
Id. § 112(b); see also infra Part II.
Chiang & Solum, supra note 2, at 573.
35 U.S.C. § 112(a) (2012).
Id. at 1351 (majority opinion).
415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc).
See cases cited supra note 35.
See Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1311 (citing 35 U.S.C. § 112).
See Ariad, 598 F.3d at 1342 (majority opinion).
Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1329-30 (Lourie, J., dissenting).
653 F.3d 1296 (Fed. Cir. 2011).
Id. at 1305 (emphasis added).
Id. at 1311 (Plager, J., concurring) (citing 35 U.S.C. § 112).
Id. at 1312 (Rader, C.J., dissenting).
Id. (citing Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 1312 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc)).
Id. at 1313 (citing Phillips 415 F.3d at 1323).
See Chiang & Solum, supra note 2, at 568-70.
Merrill, 94 U.S. at 570.
Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2120, 2129 (2014).
134 S. Ct. at 2128.
See Merrill v. Yeomans, 94 U.S. 568, 568-69 (1876).
Id. at 574 (Clifford, J., dissenting).
See Merrill, 94 U.S. at 570.
See Chiang & Solum, supra note 2, at 612-13.
Chiang & Solum, supra note 2, at 613.
For a general discussion of claim construction substance and procedure and leading cases, see Robert Merges & John Duffy, Patent Law: Cases and Materials 800-29 (5th ed. 2011); and Craig Allen Nard, The Law of Patents 58-86 (2d ed. 2011).
See, e.g., Kimberly A. Moore, Markman Eight Years Later: Is Claim Construction More Predictable?, 9 Lewis & Clark L. Rev. 231, 233 (2005) (finding that between 1996 and 2003, the Federal Circuit reversed 34.5% of claim construction cases); see also Tun-Jen Chiang & Lawrence B. Solum, The Interpretation-Construction Distinction in Patent Law, 123 Yale L.J. 530, 533 n.1 (2013) (collecting sources).
Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., 134 S. Ct. 2120, 2129 (2014) (quoting United Carbon Co. v. Binney & Smith Co., 317 U.S. 228 (1942)) (expressing concern that the Federal Circuit’s definiteness standard created a “zone of uncertainty” for enterprises and researchers trying to decide what claims cover and “bred confusion” among lower courts).
See Petition for a Writ of Certiorari at 2-4, Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., No. 13-854 (U.S. Jan. 16, 2014).
See id.; see also Lawrence B. Solum, The Interpretation-Construction Distinction, 27 Const. Comment. 95, 108 (2010).
These canonical cases include: Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc); Cybor Corp. v. FAS Techs., Inc., 138 F.3d 1448 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (en banc); and Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc., 52 F.3d 967 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (en banc), aff’d, 517 U.S. 370 (1996). For Chiang and Solum’s analysis of these cases, see Chiang & Solum, supra note 2, at 566-72, 595-97.
Polk Wagner was an early observer of this phenomenon. Wagner created an online calculator that would predict the case outcomes based on the identities of the judges assigned to the panelSee Crissa A. Seymour Cook, Comment, Constructive Criticism: Phillips v. AWH Corp. and the Continuing Ambiguity of Patent Claim Construction Principles, 55 U. Kan. L. Rev. 225, 226 n.4 (2006) (citing Wagner’s “Claim Construction Project”); see also R. Polk Wagner & Lee Petherbridge, Did Phillips Change Anything? Empirical Analysis of the Federal Circuit’s Claim Construction Jurisprudence, in Intellectual Property and the Common Law 123, 128 (Shyamkrishna Balganesh ed., 2012) (showing that the judges on the Federal Circuit continued to apply “two distinct approaches to claim construction” even after the issue was supposedly resolved in Phillips, discussed infra Part I.).
See Thomas W. Krause & Heather F. Auyang, What Close Cases and Reversals Reveal About Claim Construction at the Federal Circuit, 12 J. Marshall Rev. Intell. Prop. L. 583, 584 (2013). Chiang and Solum cite Krause and Auyang’s study as an exception to the “wide agreement” that uncertainty is caused by linguistic ambiguity. See Chiang & Solum, supra note 2, at 534 & n.9 (citing Krause & Auyang, supra).
See id. at 590 figs.6 & 8 (Judges Clevenger and Linn); id. at 591 fig.9 (Judge Lourie); id. at 592 fig.12 (Judge Newman); id. at 593 fig.16 (Chief Judge Rader); id. at 596 (noting that Judge Moore is an “exception”).
Id. at 595 (“Judges Lourie, Newman, Plager, Prost, and possibly O’Malley have endorsed [the actually invented] approach, while Chief Judge Rader and Judge Moore have expressly rejected it.”); see also id. at 602-03 (collecting cases discussing the “actually invented” standard).
Lawrence B. Solum, Originalism and Constitutional Construction, 82 Fordham L. Rev. 453, 472 (2013) (“Constitutional construction is not driven by facts [like interpretation is]. Rather, construction is essentially driven by normative concerns.”).
Craig Allen Nard, Legal Forms and the Common Law of Patents, 90 B.U. L. Rev. 51, 53 (2010) (“[T]he patent code, much like the Sherman Act, is a common law enabling statute, leaving ample room for courts to fill in the interstices or to create doctrine emanating solely from Article III’s province. Indeed, the common law has been the dominant legal force in the development of U.S. patent law for over two hundred years.”).
Consol. Elec. Light Co. v. McKeesport Light Co., 159 U.S. 465, 474 (1895) (“If the description be so vague and uncertain that no one can tell, except by independent experiments, how to construct the patented device, the patent is void.”).
See O’Reilly v. Morse, 56 U.S. (15 How.) 62, 119-20 (1854) (invalidating the claim at issue because it was “outside” the specification); see also Merges & Duffy, supra note 1, at 261-65.
See Lisa Larrimore Ouellette, Do Patents Disclose Useful Information?, 25 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 545 (2012).
See Ariad Pharm., Inc. v. Eli Lilly & Co., 598 F.3d 1336, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (en banc) (Gajarsa, J., concurring) (“[T]he text of § 112[(a)] is a model of legislative ambiguity. The interpretation of the statute, therefore, is one over which reasonable people can disagree, and, have so disagreed for the better part of a decade.”).
See Regents of the Univ. of Cal. v. Eli Lilly & Co., 119 F.3d 1559 (Fed. Cir. 1997). For examples of the other contentious cases involving the written description debate, see LizardTech, Inc. v. Earth Res. Mapping Inc., 424 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2005); Univ. of Rochester v. G.D. Searle & Co., 358 F.3d 916 (Fed. Cir.); Enzo Biochem, Inc. v. Gen-Probe Inc., 285 F.3d 1013 (Fed. Cir.), vacated, 323 F.3d 956 (Fed Cir. 2002); Gentry Gallery, Inc. v. Berkline Corp., 134 F.3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
See id. at 1361-67 (Rader, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part); id. at 1367-72 (Linn, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part). Judges Rader and Linn had criticized the separate written description requirement in previous cases. See id. at 1362 (Rader, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part) (collecting cases); Ariad Pharm., Inc. v. Eli Lilly & Co., 560 F.3d 1366, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2009) (Linn, J., concurring) (“[E]ngrafting of a separate written description requirement onto section 112[(a)] is misguided.”).
Others have noted this link. See Merges & Duffy, supra note 1, at 820-21 (noting that the majority’s interpretation of “baffles” in Phillips was in conflict with a separate “written description” requirement).
As discussed above, this is consistent with Chief Judge Rader’s voting behavior in cases involving claim construction. See supra notes 19-21 and accompanying text.
Retractable Techs., Inc. v. Becton, Dickinson & Co., 659 F.3d 1369, 1372 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (en banc) (Moore, J., dissenting); see also Dennis Crouch, Claim Construction in the Abstract, PatentlyO (Nov. 9, 2011), http://patentlyo.com/patent/2011/11/claim-construction-in-the-abstract.html [http://perma.cc/WL6X-8HV9] (discussing Judge Moore’s dissent and the “actually invented” standard).
See Retractable, 659 F.3d at 1373 (“The majority’s approach to claim construction in this case is virtually identical to the analysis performed under § 112’s written description requirement . . . . If the majority . . . is correct that as part of claim construction, we must determine the nature of the invention described in the specification and ensure that the scope of the claims are limited only to the actual invention disclosed, we must acknowledge the factual underpinnings of this analysis and there should be deference.”).
See Patent Act of 1870, ch. 230, § 26, 16 Stat. 198, 201; see also Nard, supra note 27, at 70-71 (explaining that the Act’s new language codified the patent bar’s practice of more precise claiming and “increased the statutory emphasis on the patent claim and sought to promote the public notice function of patents”).
See 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) (2012) (“The [patent] specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or joint inventor regards as the invention.”); see also Nard, supra note 1, at 141 (discussing the definiteness requirement).
94 U.S. 568, 573 (1876); see also Merges & Duffy, supra note 1, at 798-801 (discussing Merrill and the Patent Act of 1870).
John Allison, Mark Lemley, and David Schwartz have observed that indefiniteness motions are increasing, despite the Federal Circuit’s (pre-Nautilus) “hostility to the doctrine.” John R. Allison, Mark A. Lemley & David L. Schwartz, Understanding the Realities of Modern Patent Litigation, 92 Tex. L. Rev. 1769, 1784 (2014). Of the 176 indefiniteness motions filed in 2008 and 2009, only 17% were successful. Id. at 1785 tbl.2. Thus, they conclude, “the indefiniteness doctrine plays a larger role than previously recognized in patent law . . . [and] may play an even larger role . . . in the near future.” Id. at 1784.
Id. at 2124 (quoting Biosig Instruments, Inc. v. Nautilus, Inc., 715 F.3d 891, 898-99 (Fed. Cir. 2013)).
Id. at 570 (“[T]he [claim] language is far from possessing that precision and clearness of statement with which one who proposes to secure a monopoly at the expense of the public ought to describe the thing [claimed as exclusive].”).
Chiang & Solum, supra note 2, at 549. In their discussion, Chiang and Solum do not mention Justice Clifford’s dissent.
See Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, supra note 4, at i, 4-5; see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 52(a)(6) (“Findings of fact, whether based on oral or other evidence, must not be set aside unless clearly erroneous, and the reviewing court must give due regard to the trial court’s opportunity to judge the witnesses’ credibility.”).
517 U.S. 370, 378 (1996); see also id. at 391 (“Uniformity . . . would be ill served by submitting issues of document construction to juries.”).
138 F.3d 1448, 1451, 1455 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (en banc); see also Lighting Ballast Control LLC v. Phillips Elecs. N.A. Corp., 744 F.3d 1272 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (en banc) (declining to overrule Cybor Corp.).
Brief for Petitioners at 16, Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., No. 13-854 (U.S. Jun. 13, 2014).
See Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Neither Party at 8, Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., No. 13-854 (U.S. Jun. 16, 2014). As John Duffy has noted, the government’s recommendation is tremendously influential in patent law cases. See John F. Duffy, The Federal Circuit in the Shadow of the Solicitor General, 78 Geo. Wash. L. Rev. 518, 538-43 (2010).
Brief for Respondents at 42, Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., No. 13-854 (U.S. Aug. 11, 2014).
See Transcript of Oral Argument at 34, Teva Pharm. USA, Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., No. 13-854 (U.S. Oct. 15, 2014) (arguing that “the ultimate question” is “a legal question” subject to de novo review, and that “all of the disputes, factual in nature or however you describe them, get subsumed within that [question]”).
Craig Allen Nard, A Theory of Claim Interpretation, 14 Harv. J.L. & Tech. 1, 63, 66-67 (2000) (arguing for deference to trial courts “because the trial judge is institutionally positioned to examine the extrinsic context [i.e., evidence outside the claims, specification, and prosecution history], determine credibility, and then choose (i.e., interpret) between or among the proffered meanings”); see also Timothy R. Holbrook, Patents, Presumptions, and Public Notice, 86 Ind. L.J. 779, 809, 819-25 & 822 n.260 (2011) (proposing greater use of extrinsic evidence in claim construction, but conceding that this would require the Federal Circuit to review district court findings deferentially).
See Brief for Petitioners, supra note 77, at 25-33; Brief for the United States as Amicus Curiae Supporting Neither Party, supra note 77, at 14-16; Transcript of Oral Argument, supra note 80, 23-27 .
During oral argument, Chief Justice Roberts stated that “the difference between questions of law and fact has not always been an easy one for the Court to draw” and repeatedly asked the petitioners to define the “subsidiary facts” involved in claim construction. Transcript of Oral Argument, supra note 80, at 11.
For a discussion of the interrelationship between the Federal Circuit’s claim construction doctrine and the written description requirement, see supra notes 35-54 and accompanying text.
The majority’s approach in Merrill, discussed supra Part II, demonstrates how the definiteness requirement might influence claim construction. As we read Merrill, the majority construed the claim to cover the method for making hydrocarbon oils and not the hydrocarbon product because the latter construction would undermine the definiteness requirement’s purpose of ensuring that the patent gave “fair notice” to the public. See supra note 68 and accompanying text.
Several district courts since Nautilus have asked this question. See, e.g., Mycone Dental Supply Co. v. Creative Nail Design, Inc., No. 11-4380, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 93051, at *11 (D.N.J. July 9, 2014) (stating that Nautilus “changed the standard for indefiniteness such that there is a new standard of proof and a new role for someone skilled in the art; because the district court must consider whether a claim term informs, with reasonable certainty those of skill in the art about the scope of the invention, expert testimony is especially relevant”); Hand Held Prods., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 12-768, 2014 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 85345, at *14-15, 48-49 (D. Del. June 24, 2014) (citing Amazon’s lack of expert testimony in rejecting Amazon’s indefiniteness arguments).
See Romero v. United States, 38 F.3d 1204, 1207 (Fed. Cir. 1994) (citing Madison Galleries, Ltd. v. United States, 870 F.2d 627, 629 (Fed. Cir. 1989)) (“[S]tatutory construction [is] a matter of law which we review de novo.”) (emphasis removed); see also Transcript of Oral Argument, supra note 80, at 46 (“If a patent is like . . . a statute or like a rule, then factual findings regarding the meaning of that patent are not entitled to clear error review.”).
The question presented involves the standard of review, not the Federal Circuit’s claim construction doctrine or the definiteness standard. See Brief for Petitioners, supra note 77, at i.
As Craig Nard has argued, “the U.S. experience with patent law provides a strong case for an important but modest congressional role in its development, one limited to (1) bringing about procedural change relating to . . . patent law’s judicial architecture; or (2) engaging in substantive corrective action by addressing a jurisprudence gone awry.” Nard, supra note 27, at 58 (citations omitted).

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