Only Narrowing Amendments Create Prosecution History Estoppel

Business Objects, S.A. v. Microstrategy, Inc., 04-1009 (Fed. Cir. 2005). The Federal Circuit affirmed the claim construction, and determination of no literal infringement or infringement under the doctrine of equivalents of two claims, but reversed the termination of no infringement under the doctrine of equivalents of one claim. The district court found that prosecution history estoppel barred a finding of infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, but the Federal Circuit reversed because the amendment that purportedly gave rise to the prosecution history estopple was not a narrowing amendment. The Federal Circuit found that replacing "translating said user inquiry into a structred query language (SQL) equivalent statement" with "generatign queries in teh predetermiend query language" broadened the scope.