It doesn’t really matter how strategic you think you are, if you can’t access a pragmatic and clear construction of patent claims, you’re in trouble.

While patent terms always come back to the context of the specification itself (and the file history in some countries), Oxford’s Thesaurus of Claim Construction is a very handy addition to your armoury if you need to get to grips with patent claims. Co-authored by Stuart Soffer and Robert Kahrl it provides a very useful set of alternative constructions of words and phrases with citations from US patent cases and brief commentary.

This two volume set also has insightful sections on means plus function elements, design patents and how to determine what ‘ordinary skill’ really means in the context of the patent you’re looking at. With an index that runs to over 200 pages, it’s also easy to find everything.

Please click here to purchase a copy of Thesaurus of Claim Construction.