Infringement Analysis

Non-infringement is one of the three primary defenses against patent infringement assertion along with prior art and lack of enablement. Infringement is predicated upon claim construction. Determining infringement necessitates mapping specific claim limitations, in light of supportable claim construction, to the features of the accused product. The doctrine of equivalents, where a claim is construed to provide equivalent embodiments, needs to be consulted and mapped according to the merits and legalities.

A primary issue going into a patent case is knowing enough about a product to map patent claims to it. Typically, confirming the suspicion of infringement takes research. For a patent enforcer, litigation discovery is largely an exercise in gathering data about infringement. After gathering whatever information is available, product features are matched to claims, limitation by limitation.