Automed Technologies
Using a particularly awkward approach to claim construction, a federal circuit panel today holds that where an applicant offers a claim amendment that is rejected by the examiner, and the applicant abandons that amendment, the scope of the pre-amended claims is diminished. See Automed Technologies, Inc. v. Knapp Logistics & Automation, Inc., et al., No. 06-1587, (May 31, 2007) (affirming summary judgment of noninfringement).
The claims at issue in Automed Technologies are directed to a system for automatically filling prescription drug orders and generally involve receiving a prescription order, moving a vial, filling a vial, and labeling a vial. Slip op. at 2. The issue of infringement, according to the opinion, turns on whether the steps have to proceed in any particular order.
At the outset, the court concedes that the “claims alone” do not require any specific order, slip op. at 3. According to accepted tools of claim interpretation, the court then examines the written description portion of the patent document and the prosecution history to determine whether these sources might impose an order on the steps recited in the claims—which is where the opinion starts to get confusing.
Posted on June 1, 2007 8:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)
