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Civil Procedure Keyed to Erichson
Markman v. Westview Instruments, Inc.
Citation:
517 U.S. 370 (1996)Facts
Markman (Plaintiff) owned a patent for a system that tracked the status of clothing throughout a dry-cleaning operation. Westview (Defendant) developed a product that recorded the inventory of dry-cleaning receivables through the use of optical detectors. Markman filed a patent infringement claim against Westview. The jury decided in favor of Markman and ruled that an infringement had occurred, but the judge overturned the jury’s verdict and decided the case in favor of Westview, based on its conflicting interpretation of the term “inventory.”
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