Claims Construction Order in Wide, Short Ski Case against K2

Judge Lasnik recently construed claims for US Patent No. 5,603,522 for a "Wide, Short Ski." The case is one for infringement brought by inventor Paul Nelson against K2 Corporation. The parties disputed six claim terms from independent claim 1. Not surprisingly, the patent here uses words of approximation, like "about" and "approximately" to describe some numerical measurement ranges. Using the prosecution history as support, Judge Lasnik ruled that these words will be constituted to provide a +/- 3% range from the claimed measurements. This will set the boundary for a determination of literal infringement.

One interesting snippet from this Order is that Judge Lasnik all but ignored evidence from a patent attorney as to what these words ought to mean, saying "Absent evidence that [the patent attorney] is one skilled in the art of designing and/or manufacturing skis, his opinion regarding the proper interpretation of the claim terms is not useful to the Court." (citing Network Commerce, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp., 422 F.3d 1353, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (quoting Phillips, 415 F.3d at 1318).


NelsonvK2claimsconstruction.pdf