How We Approach Markman Hearings and Claim Construction

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.