To protect the inventions that are important to a company’s current and future success, the claims of the patents covering those inventions must accurately define the subject matter that is regarded as the invention and target the right infringers. Drafting claims that accurately define the subject matter that is regarded as the invention requires the crafting of claims to have metes and bounds that precisely circumscribe the subject matter which is regarded as the invention. This can be done by constructing independent claims such that the subject matter regarded as the invention forms the axis around which independent claims are structured. Using this approach, the content of the body of the independent claim is limited to the subject matter that has been identified as that regarded as the invention and any subject matter that is needed to support that subject matter. These subject matter parts are the elements that are needed to accurately define the subject matter protected by the patent. Organizing these elements into patent claim format with the elements recited as broadly as possible provides the fullest measure of protection to which the applicant is legally entitled. This process helps to ensure that those who engage in infringing activity related to the inventive subject matter are implicated by the claim for infringement.

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