When Biosig Instruments brought a patent infringement action against Nautilus Inc. over U.S. Patent No. 5,337,753, an improved heart monitor which eliminates noise signals from skeletal muscles, the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that a patent was valid so long as the description of what it does is not “insolubly ambiguous” or is at least “amenable to construction.” The ruling has been criticized because it may encourage the submission of vague patent claims.
However, the Supreme Court reversed this ruling, concluding that a patent’s essential elements must be described clearly enough that “someone skilled in the field” can understand it with “reasonable certainty.” The part of the description under scrutiny was that the circuitry included electrodes “mounted . . . in spaced relationship with each other.” This description was considered insufficient because it did not fully specify the nature of the spaced relationship. The Court explained that, “… a patent must be precise enough to afford clear notice of what is claimed, thereby ‘appris[ing] the public of what is still open to them…’ Otherwise there would be ‘[a] zone of uncertainty which enterprise and experimentation may enter only at the risk of infringement claims…’” Justice Ginsburg provided the opinion for a unanimous court on June 2, 2014.
The specificity of language is of utmost importance in patent claims. Because all languages function differently concerning the nuances of vocabulary and syntax, translation services can often further a text from its exact intended meaning. Therefore, an ambiguity in a patent claim will likely widen this gap and often cause larger problems in international contexts. The Supreme Court’s ruling of “reasonable certainty” calls for preciseness while still recognizing the limitations of language.
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