Duratech Ind. v. Bridgeview Mfg. Oral Argument

The Federal Circuit heard oral argument in Duratech Ind. v. Bridgeview Mfg. on August 2, 2010.    I’ve commented a couple of times in recent days on the Becton Dickinson v. Tyco decision where the judges appeared to ignore the rule of Liebel-Flarsheim v. Medrad that a claim should be construed to preserve its validity only when the claim is first determined to be ambiguous after applying all other rules of claim construction.

The following sound bite from the recent oral argument in Duratech Ind. v. Bridgeview Mfg. is another example of a judge reciting the obsolete canon of claim construction that a claim should be construed to preserve its validity.  [Listen].  That is simply no longer the law in view of the Liebel-Flarsheim and Phillips decisions which require that one construe a claim to preserve its validity only after all other rules of claim construction have been exhausted and the claim is still ambiguous.

You can listen to the entire oral argument here: [Listen].

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