Federal Circuit Holds that “Highly Persuasive” Evidence is Required to Read Claims as Excluding a Preferred Embodiment of the Invention

The Federal Circuit, in CUPP Computing AS v. Trend Micro Inc., 53 F.4th 1376, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2022), reiterated that a claim interpretation that excludes a preferred embodiment from the scope of the claim is rarely, if ever, correct, and the only meaning that matters in claim construction is the meaning in the context of the patent. The court also held that the Board is not required to accept a patent owner’s arguments as a disclaimer when deciding the merits of those arguments.