Patenaude v. Middletown Zbr decision.doc, 2001-0545 (r.I.super. 2006)

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that specific examples in the specification provided “points of comparison” that helped form an objective standard of the claim’s scope
• holding that whether something is 25 “visually negligible” involved what could be seen by the normal human eye thereby 26 providing an “objective baseline” for interpreting claim language
• recognizing that terms of degree in a patent claim are “purely subjective,” such that they could be invalid as indefinite, if there is not “an objective baseline through which to interpret the claims”
• concluding that the written description provided sufficient level of detail
• holding “visually negligible” was definite, as particular examples in the specification provided “points of comparison” for skilled artisans to discern the scope of the term
• stating that a claim is indefinite when it is “completely dependent on a person’s subjective opinion” (citation omitted)

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).