澳大利亚法院判决“包含”专利撰写的最佳课程
这是大岭为您分享IP英文的第202天：后续Google 翻译，仅供参考。
澳大利亚法院最近的一个判决给出了需要聘请专业的专利代理人撰写专利申请文件的一个鲜活例子。
涉案的权利要求：
一种发光器件，其中荧光粉包含由通式（Re 1-r Sm r ）3 （Al 1-s Gas）5 O 12 ：Ce 表示的荧光材料，……
权利要求包括一个术语“包含”（contains），对于这个“包含”有两种解释方法，一种为封闭式的，即只包含由通式限定的材料，一种为开放式的，即除了由通式限定的材料之外还包含其他材料。
最终法院认为按照权利要求本身，以及考虑到说明书并没有记载由通式限定的材料之外的其他材料，权利要求的“包含”应该解释为封闭式的，而侵权产品包括其他材料，所以不侵权。
可以，权利要求的每一个字的撰写都需要专业人士参与，否则专利就是一张无用的白纸。
Full Federal Court decision “contains” important drafting lessons for Australia
Phillips Ormonde Fitzpatrick - Helen McFadzean | April 5 2019
As a patent attorney, I am often asked the question – ‘shall I draft my own patent specification?’ Of course, my answer is ‘no’. There are lots of reasons for this. One of which is that the particular way in which a patent specification is drafted, including the specific words used in the claims to define the scope of your invention, and how the body of the specification supports the claimed scope of protection is crucial when it comes to validity and enforcement.
As reported in our earlier article regarding Nichia Corporation v Arrow Electronics, the primary judge found that Arrow Electronics did not infringe Nichia’s patent based on the interpretation of the word ‘contains’ in the claims. The appeal of this decision was recently dismissed with the Full Court confirming the findings of the primary judge on issues relating to claim construction and infringement.
Claim 3 being the relevant claim of Nichia’s patent defined:
A light emitting device…wherein the phosphor contains fluorescent material represented by a general formula (Rel-rSmr)3(Al1-sGas)5O12:Ce, where 0≤r<l and 0≤s≤1 and Re is at least one selected from Y and Gd. (emphasis added).
The question mainly centered around whether the word ‘contains’ should be construed in the exhaustive sense or the inclusive sense. For example, if I say that my lunch contains a sandwich, there are two possible scenarios for the contents of my lunch:
My lunch only contains a sandwich and nothing else (exhaustive interpretation); or
My lunch contains a sandwich and some other food items, such as fruit, chocolates and various other snacks (inclusive interpretation).
The Court confirmed the primary judge’s finding that the word ‘contains’ in claim 3 should be construed in the exhaustive sense to mean that the fluorescent material must be the fluorescent material represented by the general formula and not that fluorescent material together with some other fluorescent material not represented by the general formula.
In arriving at this conclusion, the court considered a range of arguments for construing the word ‘contains’ in an exhaustive and in an inclusive sense, and found both sides of the argument to be fairly balanced. Moreover, the dependent claims (including claim 6 which specified that the phosphor contains two or more fluorescent materials of different compositions represented by the general formula) could be construed consistently with either construction.
However, the Court noted that the specification does not mention, in the context of the invention, any phosphors other than those containing the fluorescent material of the kind described in the claims, and that the specification is silent about the possibility of the fluorescent material containing those of the kind described in the claims together with any other kind.
Consequently, infringement was not established as Arrow’s LEDs included a fluorescent material which was within the general formula and other fluorescent material that was not within the general formula.
As is evident from this case, words such as ‘contains’, ‘includes’ and ‘comprises’ may be ambiguous without context. It is therefore important for the body of the specification to clarify the intended meaning. If an inclusive interpretation is desired, the specification should specifically mention this and provide example embodiments to support this construction, even if those example embodiments do not necessarily embody the commercial product.
联邦法院全席判决“包含”重要的专利撰写课程
作为专利律师，我经常被问到这样的问题 - “我应该起草我自己的专利说明书吗？” 当然，我的回答是'不'。这有很多原因。其中之一是起草专利说明书的具体方式，包括在权利要求中用于定义发明范围的具体词语，以及规范正文如何支持所声称的保护范围，这一点至关重要。有效性和执法。
正如我们之前关于Nichia Corporation诉Arrow Electronics的文章所述，主要法官发现Arrow Electronics并未根据对声明中“包含”一词的解释而侵犯Nichia的专利。该裁决的上诉最近被驳回，全体法院确认了主要法官关于索赔建设和侵权问题的调查结果。
权利要求3是Nichia专利的相关权利要求：
一种发光器件，其中荧光粉含有由通式（Re 1-r Sm r ）3 （Al 1-s Gas）5 O 12 ：Ce 表示的荧光材料，其中0≤r<1且0≤s≤1和Re是选自Y和Gd中的至少一种。（重点补充）。
问题主要集中在“包含”这个词是否应该用详尽的意义或包容的意义来解释。例如，如果我说我的午餐包含三明治，我的午餐内容有两种可能的情况：
我的午餐只包含一个三明治，没有别的（详尽的解释）; 要么
我的午餐包含三明治和其他一些食品，如水果，巧克力和各种其他小吃（包括口译）。
法院确认主要法官的裁定认为，权利要求3中的“包含”一词应该在详尽的意义上解释为荧光材料必须是通式所代表的荧光材料，而不是荧光材料和其他一些荧光材料。没有通式表示。
在得出这个结论时，法院考虑了一系列论据，用于在详尽和包容的意义上构建“包含”一词，并认为论证的两个方面都是相当平衡的。此外，从属权利要求（包括权利要求6，其中规定磷光体含有两种或更多种由通式表示的不同组成的荧光材料）可以与任一种结构一致地解释。
然而，法院指出，在本发明的上下文中，本说明书没有提及除含有权利要求中所述类型的荧光材料的那些之外的任何磷光体，并且该说明书没有提及含荧光材料的可能性。权利要求中描述的那种以及任何其他类型的那些。
因此，由于Arrow的LED包含一般配方中的荧光材料和不在通用配方中的其他荧光材料，因此未确定侵权行为。
从这种情况可以明显看出，诸如“包含”，“包括”和“包含”之类的词语在没有上下文的情况下可能是不明确的。因此，对于说明书的主体来说，澄清预期的含义是很重要的。如果需要包含性解释，则说明书应特别提及此并提供支持该构造的示例实施例，即使这些示例性实施例不一定体现商业产品。
Source:https://www.linkedin.com/company/phillips-ormonde-fitzpatrick?originalSubdomain=au
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