The court reiterated here its position that “[t]he use of a specific embodiment for illustrative purposes does not impliedly exclude other embodiments.” It is also at least noteworthy that the court highlighted and lent credence to the use of a boilerplate disclaimer in the specification stating that the “descriptions [of the illustrated embodiments] are made only by way of example and are not intended to limit the scope of the invention.”
Background / Facts: The patents here are directed to automatically adjusting a graphics cutting machine to compensate for a misaligned sheet of material. This is accomplished by sensing pre-printed “registration marks” and using those marks to determine the sheet’s position and orientation. The registration marks can be ordinary marks used for other purposes or a new class of marks inserted for this specific purpose. In this regard, the claims recite the use of “a plurality of registration marks in predetermined positions with respect thereto at the time the graphics are applied, a subset of the marks being initial-position/orientation-determining marks.”
Issue(s): Whether the “initial-position/orientation-determining marks” should be read as limited to the new class of registration marks that are unique and visually distinguishable from ordinary registration marks.
Holding(s): No. “While [the accused infringer] points to a single instance of the word ‘unique’ in the … patent’s specification, the cited passage simply mentions one possible embodiment having ‘more than one subset of unique initial-position/orientation-determining marks.’ … Neither this passage nor any other language in the specification requires that the initial-position marks be visually distinguishable from other registration marks. … [I]t is well established that ‘particular embodiments appearing in the specification will not generally be read into the claims.’”