Claims of a patent define the scope of protection conferred by
the patent. Hence, patent claims are worded carefully with an
objective to make it harder for those attempting to work around the
claims. While patent holders dread a situation where competitors
make minor changes to a patent protected product/process to evade
patent infringement, competitors on the other hand dread a
situation where changes made to a patented product/process are not
sufficient to evade patent infringement. Insight into how patent
infringement is determined can go a long way in addressing concerns
of patent holders and those attempting to work around existing
patents.
Patent infringement analysis is usually conducted in two stages,
namely, literal infringement analysis and non literal infringement
analysis (infringement under the doctrine of equivalents). In the
first stage of analysis, a claim and the alleged infringing product
or process are analyzed to determine whether all the elements
