US Supreme Court definition of "claim" from Markman case, for background:
It has long been understood that a patent must describe the exact scope of an invention and its manufacture to secure to the patentee all to which he is entitled, and to apprise the public of what is still open to them. Under the modern American system, these objectives are served by two distinct elements of a patent document.
First, it contains a specification describing the invention in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art . . . to make and use the same.
Second, a patent includes one or more "claims," which particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
A claim covers and secures a process, a machine, a manufacture, a composition of matter, or a design,
BUT N-E-V-E-R THE FUNCTION OR RESULT OF EITHER, NOR THE SCIENTIFIC EXPLANATION OF THEIR OPERATION.
The claim defines the scope of a patent grant, and functions to forbid not only exact copies of an invention, but products that go to the heart of the invention but avoid the literal language of the claim by making a noncritical change. In this opinion, the word "claim" is used only in this sense peculiar to patent law.
caselaw.findlaw.com
Courtesy of Brokentrade at RB.
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