Purposive Construction

A concept of claim construction in UK patent law establish in the Catnic/Improver line of cases which asserts that the intent or purpose of claim language should take precedence over a literal interpretation, i.e., that the court should determine what a POSA would have understood the claim language to have intended to capture rather than the literal meaning of that language. It is similar to the US every patentee is his own lexicographer principle.

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