Recent Federal Circuit Patent Decisions

On appeal from a district court holding the patent indefinite and therefore invalid, the Federal Circuit held that "close questions of indefiniteness involving issued patents are properly resolved in favor of the patentee." Bancorp Servs., LLC v. Hartford Life Ins. Co. (March 1, 2004). The Court stressed that if the meaning of a claim term is difficult to ascertain, but nonetheless discernible, the claim should not be invalid for indefiniteness. The claim term at issue, while not defined in the patent, corresponded to a compound term whose components had well-recognized meanings allowing one of ordinary skill in the art to infer the claim term’s overall meaning. Moreover, the claim term was substantially similar to a second term used and defined throughout the patent. Because of this association, the claim term was held to be equivalent to the second term, thus avoiding a finding of