Donika Pentcheva Has Been Invited to Update the American Intellectual Property Law Association Model Patent Jury Instructions

Donika Pentcheva has been invited to providing updates to the claim construction sections of the American Intellectual Property Law Association Model Patent Jury Instructions.  More specifically, Donika Pentcheva has been assigned to the sections involving patent claim construction and construction of means-plus-function patent claims. 

The patent claims are numbered sentences at the end of the U.S. patent.  The patent claims are intended to define, in words, the boundaries of the inventor’s rights. Only the claims of the patent can be infringed. Neither the written description, nor the drawings of a patent can be infringed. Each of the claims must be considered individually. You must use the same claim meaning for both your decision on infringement and your decision on invalidity.

Per the Instructions, one of the fundamental goals of the Instructions is to provide a neutral set of jury instructions that would not be biased in favor of either the patent owner or the accused infringer.  These Instructions are not intended to address every conceivable issue that might arise in patent litigation.  Instead, instructions are provided on those issues that typically arise in patent litigation and that have clear precedential support.  The litigants must tailor these Instructions to the specific issues in their particular case and to eliminate superfluous or confusing instructions. It is also intended that these Instructions will be used in conjunction with other instructions dealing with issues that are not specific to patent law.