【Claim】公示放棄原則與112

【Claim】公示放棄原則與112

The Toro Company v. White Consolidated Industries, Inc., et al.

In Johnson & Johnston, this court held that
when a patent drafter discloses but declines to claim subject matter . . . this action dedicates that unclaimed subject matter to the public.  Application of the doctrine of equivalents to recapture subject matter deliberately left unclaimed would “conflict with the primacy of the claims in defining the scope of the patentee’s exclusive right.”

the disclosure-dedication rule 公示放棄原則：
有揭示但卻沒有claim的範圍，視為貢獻於公眾，不論是文意範圍或是均等範圍。

於此案中，原告Toro提出因所揭示的內容揭露不足，故不能適用the disclosure-dedication rule。CAFC法官則認為，即使揭露不足一樣會適用公示放棄原則：
As noted above, the written description necessary to support a claim construction is not necessarily the same as the disclosure of subject matter needed to invoke the disclosure-dedication rule.  Material that is explicitly disclaimed in the specification—like the disclaimer of a removable ring in this case—is disclosed for purposes of the disclosure-dedication rule, but it cannot be encompassed within the scope of the claims.

此判例中CAFC法官還對Law of the Case做了些解譯。

【摘譯】
this claim construction “did not and could not import into the claim a function from the specification, particularly when the claim recites only purely structural limitations.”  Id. (citing E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. v. Phillips Petroleum Co., 849 F.2d 1430, 1433 (Fed. Cir. 1988)).

解譯申請專利範圍，不會也不能從說明書中將功能引進申請專利範圍內，尤其是當申請專利範圍僅純粹敘述結構上的限制條件。