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What is a Markman hearing? What is claim construction? I'm Rich
Beem. I'm a patent attorney in Chicago. I handle patent
infringement cases. A Markman hearing is named after a case
that was called Markman. Markman was one of the parties. And the
ruling in Markman, the principle of law, is that it is for the
Court to decide what a patent claim means: what the words
mean, what the terms mean, and what the scope of that patent
claim is. So Markman is all about what we call "claim
construction". Now construction is another word for
interpretation; it means to interpret the claim, to say what
the claim means, how broad is the claim, how narrow is the
claim, what are those words, what are those terms mean? The
Court decides all of that as a matter of law and it's usually
decided on the briefs. So it's very important to have a patent
attorney involved in the briefs on claim construction, which is
also called Markman. Because once the Court rules on that and
issues an opinion and says "this is what the claims mean," that's
what the jury is going to base its decision on. It's going to
use the construction that the Court tells it to use. And so,
you, as someone who is involved in patent litigation for your
company that's making decisions, you need a blueprint. You need
to know what's going to happen in Markman, you need to make
sure that the briefs that are prepared to explain what the
patent claims mean that those briefs are well done. And what
it means overall in the nature of the case. Because if you get
a good Markman ruling, that will lead to often to a favorable
resolution even before trial, either by summary judgment, or
by settlement. I'm Rich Beem. I do patent infringement
litigation. When you have a patent infringement matter,
call me. I'm at 312-201-0011. Thank you.