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1. Does the variant have a material effect upon the way the invention works?
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YES
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variant falls outside the patent claim
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NO
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2. Would this (i.e. the variant had no material effect) have been obvious at the date of publication of the patent to a reader skilled in the art
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variant falls outside the patent claim
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NO
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3. Would the readers skilled in the art nevertheless have understood from the language of the claim that the patentee intended that strict compliance with the primary meaning was an essential requirement of the invention
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YES
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variant falls outside the patent claim
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NO
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conclusion is that the patentee was intending the word or phrase to have not a literal but a figurative meaning denoting a class of things which includes both the variant and the literal meaning.
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Improver Purposive Approach
