“The principal question that this case presents to us is the extent to which we should resort to and rely on a patent’s specification in seeking to ascertain the proper scope of its claims.”
“In Vitronics, we did not attempt to provide a rigid algorithm for claim construction, but simply attempted to explain why, in general, certain types of evidence are more valuable than others. Today, we adhere to that approach and reaffirm the approach to claim construction outlined in that case, in Markman, and in Innova. . . . As we stated in Vitronics, the specification ‘is always highly relevant to the claim construction analysis. Usually, it is dispositive; it is the single best guide to the meaning of a disputed term.’”
