Phillips v. AWH Corporation
Federal Circuit
415 F.3d 1303 (2005)
Phillips (plaintiff) patented modular steel-shell wall panels using internal steel "baffles" for load-bearing and impact resistance, and sued AWH Corporation (defendant) for infringement after their business relationship ended; the district court construed "baffles" to require an oblique or acute angle relative to the wall based on the specification's discussion of deflecting projectiles, found the accused product's structure did not meet that definition, and granted summary judgment of non-infringement to AWH. A divided appellate panel initially affirmed, and the full Federal Circuit then vacated that decision to rehear the case en banc.
Whether a court may draw on a variety of approaches and resources -- including the prosecution history and both intrinsic and extrinsic evidence -- in construing a disputed patent claim term, always in the context of the claims and specification as understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art.