Claim differentiation may be used to demonstrate drafting intent with regard to included and omitted features. Here, for example, the claimed operation of “creating” an object instance was found to require only instantiating that object rather than also generating the code for the class associated with that object because the code generation step was separately recited in another independent claim. It may therefore be best to separately recite potentially ambiguous but non-essential features in other claims in order to further manifest the desired interpretation of the independent claims.
Background / Facts: The patent being asserted here is directed to interfacing an object oriented software application to access data stored in a relational database. The claims recite “creat[ing] at least one interface object” that acts as an intermediary between the object oriented application and the relational database. As both parties agree, in object oriented applications, objects are created from classes by a process called “instantiation” and each object is said to be an “instance” of its class.
Issue(s): Whether “creating” the interface object requires generating the code for the object’s class in addition to instantiating the object itself.
Holding(s): No. “To the extent … that the district court required generating code for a class as part of the claim step of creating ‘at least one interface object,’ it erred. To be clear, to instantiate an object from a class, you must have a class. That class, however, could be preexisting, or it could be generated as part of the overall object-creation process. The patentee chose to claim the instantiation of the object in the method step ‘to create at least one interface object.’ It did not, in this claim, limit the manner or timing in which the class comes into existence. Claim 1 recites a step of creating an interface object, but it does not recite a preceding step of generating code for a class or, for that matter, generating code at all. Claim 1 is silent regarding code generation in connection with creating the interface object. In contrast, another independent claim [i.e., claim 10] recites using a ‘code generator’ to create at least one interface object. [] We recognize that claims 1 and 10 differ in scope in other aspects. Nonetheless, viewing claim 1 in the context of claim 10 demonstrates that when the inventors of the [] patent wanted to limit the claims to require code generation, they did so explicitly. This suggests that claim 1 should not be so limited.”