Plyboo Claims Construction Order Issued

Judge Leighton (Tacoma) recently construed the claim terms of U.S. Patent No. 5,543,197, a patent including claims for "parallel, randomly stacked, stranded, laminated bamboo beams and boards." According to the order, the term "beam" as used in the claims is not necessarily limited to something of sufficient size and strength to serve as a structural support. Further, the term "random orientation" as used in the claims means "that the bamboo segments and stocks used to construct the bamboo beam are not placed in an orderly or uniform fashion; they do not have a top or a bottom, or a front or a back. Instead, they are placed at random. As used in the ‘197 patent, the term also requires that the generally parallel bamboo segments have random, not uniform, lengths, and are staggered or lapped along the length of the beam."
teragren%20claims%20const.pdf