Opinion ID: 774257
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Greater Than

Text: 28 The '050 and '023 patent claims require that the insert means projections have a length that is different from the length of the inner hose recesses, and the '752 and '822 patents claim require that the insert means projections have a length that is different than the length of the insert means recesses. While the district court properly construed the claims of '050 and '023 patents to require that the length of the insert means projections be different from the length of the inner hose recesses, 3 the court inexplicably construed the claims of the '752 and '822 patents to require that the length of the insert means recesses be greater than the length of the insert means projections. We believe the '752 and '822 patent claims should have been construed similarly to the '050 and '023 patent claims to require that the length of the insert means recesses be different from or not equal to, rather than greater than, the length of the insert means projections. Since the structure and wording of the '752 and '822 patent claims is similar to the structure and wording of the '050 and '023 patent claims, we see no reason to construe the claims of the former two patents more narrowly than those of the latter two patents. Moreover, the structure and wording of the claims in these four patents is distinctly different from the language of the '686 patent claims, which requires that the recesses of the insert means be defined by a radius that is longer than a radius defining the length of the insert means projections. Thus, we construe the claims of the '752 and '822 patents to require that the insert means have projections and recesses, where the length of the projections is not equal to the length of the recesses. 29 TCI argues that the district court's claim construction was correct in light of the patent specification's description of insert means recesses with a greater length than the insert means projections. We disagree, because although we construe claims in light of the teaching of the specification, we do not treat characteristics of a preferred embodiment as claim limitations. Comark Communications, 156 F.3d at 1186, 48 USPQ2d at 1005.