Despite the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's en banc Phillips v. AWH Corp. decision in 2005 that purported to establish the definitive standard for claim construction, two disparate lines of claim construction case law have emerged in Federal Circuit panel decisions.

One line approaches claim construction as a contextual, holistic exercise that considers a variety of types of evidence with few hard-and-fast rules.

The other line begins with a rigid default of so-called ordinary and customary meaning that can be overcome in only two narrow circumstances.

Originally published by Law360 - January 25, 2024.