Patent Claims: A Means To An End?

The Supreme Court of China issued the Interpretation on Several Issues Concerning the Application of Law in the Trial of Disputes over Infringement of Patent Rights in 2009.

Article 4 reads: "Where a claim presents a technical feature expressed in terms of function or effect, the People's Court shall determine the contents of such technical feature on the basis of the specific embodiment(s) of the function or effect as described in the description and the appended drawings and its or their equivalent embodiment(s)."

In short, a means-plus-function feature recited in a claim is essentially defined by the indispensable features in the specification for performing the function or effect and the equivalent features.