Читать книгу Intellectual Property Law for Engineers, Scientists, and Entrepreneurs - Howard B. Rockman - Страница 66

The patent concludes with one or more numbered single‐sentence statements, or “claims,” which particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter that the applicant regards as the invention. These claims form the “heart” of the patent, and are normally written in “non‐prose” terms that the average reader may find cumbersome to read. The claims define a specific point or points of novelty embodied in the invention. The claims must also recite the specific non‐novel structure necessary to properly “locate” or support the elements of novel structure of the invention. As will be discussed in Chapter 10, the objective of a patent’s claims is to define the elements of the invention in terms such that the claims cover any related or competitive device or method developed in the future falling within the same product or process category, and at the same time each claim must not cover or “read on” the vast body of relevant prior art, or prior technology, that preceded the invention. Therefore, the claims set forth the narrow point of “invention” that is fenced off to define the exclusive rights of the inventor.