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Recent decisions by the appellate court for all cases involving patents, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the Supreme Court have tended to narrow the scope afforded to claims, and forced patent drafters to "aim" their claims more precisely at intended targets. Patent owners have answered the courts by widening the attack of their patent portfolios in a number of ways. This article explores several approaches recently adopted by patentees to improve their situations in the courts.
I. Increase the Numbers of Patents and Claims
One way to fight narrower individual claims is to increase the numbers of claims in one’s arsenal. Filing continuation and divisional applications provides an effective means of arming oneself by firing (or threatening) shotgun blasts of claims rather than carefully aimed rifle shots. Two pioneers of this approach, Ronald Katz and Jerome Lemelson, have become extremely wealthy
