On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled “that the Federal Circuit's long-standing precedent for proving a patent indefinite allowed for too much ambiguity.” Finnegan partner James R. Barney, discussed the significance of the decision in Nautilus Inc. v. Biosig Instruments Inc. “The impact of this decision is not limited to any particular industry or type of patent,” he said. “All patents in all areas of technology could be susceptible to indefiniteness challenges depending on how the Federal Circuit applies the new Nautilus test. It will be interesting to see how this new test applies to so-called terms of degree, like ‘about’ and ‘approximately.’ These types of terms are very common in patent claim drafting, so it will probably not be long before one of them is challenged under the new Nautilus test.”
