By Marius Meland (July 14, 2005, 12:00 AM EDT) -- In Phillips v. AWH Corporation, the en banc Federal Circuit clarified a previous decision by ruling that the patent specification — not dictionaries — should be the primary source of evidence in construing the claims of a patent.  The opinion, joined by 9 of the 12 judges, stated that its 2002 holding in Texas Digital Systems, Inc. v. Telegenics, Inc., improperly elevated the dictionary to a prominence that focused the inquiry on the abstract meaning of words, rather than on the meaning of the claim terms within the context of the patent itself.  This decision is extremely important in the context of preparing patent applications and patent litigation, as the proper claim construction, i.e. the interpretation of the meaning of patent claim terms has become the initial battle that determines whether a patent is infringed.  The Phillips court agreed with many of the Amicus briefs and held that a proper methodology is to construe claims as viewed by a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time the patent application was filed based on the patent specification. ...