*Ce qu’il faut retenir:
Aux États-Unis, le préambule d’une revendication peut être utilisé pour limiter la portée de celle-ci.
** Pour en savoir plus:
Dans American Medical Systems, Inc. v. Biolitec, Inc. (Fed. Cir. 9/13/2010) , la cour du Federal Circuit a statué que le préambule pouvait être interprété comme étant limitatif dans les cas où il récitait de la structure ou une étape jugée essentiel…:
“Generally,†we have said, “the preamble does not limit the claims.†Nonetheless, the preamble may be construed as limiting “if it recites essential structure or steps, or if it is ‘necessary to give life, meaning, and vitality’ to the claim.†A preamble is not regarded as limiting, however, “when the claim body describes a structurally complete invention such that deletion of the preamble phrase does not affect the structure or steps of the claimed invention.†If the preamble “is reasonably susceptible to being construed to be merely duplicative of the limitations in the body of the claim (and was not clearly added to overcome a [prior art] rejection), we do not construe it to be a separate limitation.†We have held that the preamble has no separate limiting effect if, for example, “the preamble merely gives a descriptive name to the set of limitations in the body of the claim that completely set forth the invention.â€
***Pour les praticiens de la propriété intellectuelle
La revendication en cause est la revendication 31 et plus spécifiquement le terme “photoselective vaporisation”:
A method for photoselective vaporization of tissue, comprising:
delivering laser radiation to a treatment area on the tissue, the laser radiation having a wavelength and having irradiance in the treatment area sufficient to cause vaporization of a substantially greater volume of tissue than a volume of residual coagulated tissue caused by the laser radiation, wherein the delivered laser radiation has an average irradiance in the treatment area greater than 10 kiloWatts/cm2 in a spot size at least 0.05 mm2.
En appel, la majorité a rejeté la décision de première instance et a conclu que le terme en question ne limitait pas les revendications.