A Quick Primer on Claims in Patents

A quick primer on patent claims. The most important part of any patent is the claims of a patent. The claims literally state what the inventor "claims" as his invention.

Two types of patent claims: Independent and dependent claims
A claims that stands alone without reference to any other claim is called an independent claim. Claims that refer to a preceding claim are said to "depend from" the proceding claims and are necessarily of narrower scope than the independent claim. So although all claims in a patent are important, the basis of the patent is truly in the independent claims.

According to legal sources.... It is a fundamental principle of patent law that, to prove infringement, the patent holder must show that each and every limitation of the asserted claim is present in the accused product, either literally or equivalently. If the patent holder fails to show the presence of even a single claim limitation, that is enough to negate an allegation of infringement of the claim. This is known in patent law as the “all elements rule”.

The first step is to "read" each claim of the patent upon the accused structure or process. Every requirement of each claim must be considered to see if each thing set out in the claim also appears in the accused practice. If one or more things set forth in a claim is not present in the practice being reviewed, there is no infringement of that claim.