Patent Infringement
Patent infringement involves a two-step process. First, the the meaning and scope of the asserted patent claims must be determined. Second, the properly construed claims are compared to the accused product or process. See Aquatex Industries, Inc. v. Techniche Solutions, 419 F.3d 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2005).
The doctrine of equivalents extends patent infringement to insubstantial alterations that were not captured in drafting the original patent claim but which could be created through trivial changes. An element in the accused product is equivalent to a claim limitation if the differences between the two are insubstantial. Id.
