[Patents] are claims OR'ed or AND'ed?

[ramon@jl1.quim.ucm.es (Ram'on Garc'ia Fern'andez)]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2001 at 04:19:37PM +0200, Luuk van Dijk wrote:
> L.S.
> 
> As a complete amateur in these matters, I'm a 
> bit confused about the list of claims that accompany 
> a patent. 
> 
> http://swpat.ffii.org/vreji/pikta/index.en.html says
>  'Each claim defines one class of prohibited objects'
> which I interpret as meaning that I am prohibited to
> make and sell anything that fits claim 1 OR  that fits claim2 OR ...

Exactly.

See for example US Patent 5963916:

( 
http://164.195.100.11/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=/netahtml/srchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=%275963916%27.WKU.&OS=PN/5963916&RS=PN/5963916
 )

    What is claimed is:

    1. A method for enabling a remote user to preview a portion of a
    pre-recorded music [bla bla bla]

    [...]

    3. The method of claim 1 wherein the central memory device
    comprises a plurality of compact disc-read only memory (CD-ROMs).

    4. The method of claim 1 wherein the central memory device
    comprises a RAID array drive.

Claims 3 and 4 are incompatible. So the only posible interpretation
is "OR".

> a source of ultimate wisdom concerning patents, and I've
> just, in a private correspondence with someone rather 
> well informed, been told that subsequent claims /refine/ eachother,

Although they refine earch other, that is not an "AND". I guess that
The strategy is to draft the first claim in the most broad posible
way, and the other claims describe the invention with more detail. In
this way, if a judge finds the first claim obvious, that would not
automatically invalidate the other claims. In addition, without the
other claims, a second inventor could patent applications of the
invention.

Ramon