Claims interpretation limited to disclosed information

A patent’s description and figures may be used to interpret the information within its claims, but this does not mean that any information in its description itself may be interpreted as part of its claims. When the description is used to interpret the claims, the description should be the basis so as to make the scope of protection of the claims consistent with the scope disclosed in the description. Information insufficiently disclosed in the description should not be interpreted into the scope of protection of the claims.

Patent in dispute

In a patent rights confirmation dispute involving an invention entitled “Nickel-iron smelting process from nickel oxide ore containing crystallized water through a blast furnace”, claim 1 reads as follows:

“A nickel-iron smelting process from nickel oxide ore containing crystallized water through a blast furnace, characterized in that: … sintered ore blocks, coke, limestone/lime, dolomite and fluorite are mixed and smelted in a blast furnace to obtain nickel iron, where the weight ratios of the following additives and sintered ore are as follows: fluorite 0.3 ~ 20% ….”

Jiang Fengtao is the managing partner and Yang Cunji is an associate at Hengdu Law Offices