A chandelier depends from the ceiling.
Do you know the difference between an "independent" patent claim and a "dependent" one? If you don’t but would like to, the Federal Circuit offered a primer on the subject today in Monsanto Co. v. Sygenta Seeds, Inc., No. 06-1472 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 4, 2007). The court concluded that claim 4 in a patent depended from claim 1 because it invoked "a fertile transgenic plant obtained by the process of claim 1". Infringement of claim 4 thus required infringement of claim 1.
Blawgletter invites your attention to the possibly key distinction between depending "on" and depending "from". The "on" formulation suggests relying, but the "from" version implies hanging. We think that dependent claims hang from independent ones but don’t rely on them.
Barry Barnett
