Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co., 535 U.S. 722 (2002), was a United States Supreme Court decision in the area of patent law that examined the relationship between the doctrine of equivalents (which holds that a patent can be infringed by something that is not literally falling within the scope of the claims because a somewhat insubstantial feature or element has been substituted) and the doctrine of prosecution history estoppel (which holds that a party who makes a change to a patent application to accommodate the requirements of patent law cannot claim indirect infringement of an element that was narrowed by that change).Warning: template has been deprecated.
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
535 U.S. 722
Festo Corp. v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo Kabushiki Co.
CERTIORARI TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FEDERAL CIRCUIT
No. 00—1543. Argued January 8, 2002–Decided May 28, 2002
