Phillips v. AWH Corporation, et al.

Phillips invented a vandalism-proof wall, which is valued in making prisons, and obtainted a patent. AWH had licensed this patent, but continued to market products that may infringe Phillips' paent after the agreement lapsed. After re-iterating many principals of claim construction, the CAFC held, en banc, that the specification (and prosecution historty, both as intrinsic evidence) must necisarily inform the construction of the claims. External evidence may be used as helpful to construe claims, but not contrary to the meaning of the instrinsic evidence. In this case, just becuase the "steel baffles" provides for multiple objectives does not mean that the term should be read narrowly within the claims.
The dissent would have overturned construction of claims as a matter of law.
This case, of course, had many, many amicus curie briefs.
Links:

• MP3: Philliphs v. AWH (citations ommitted).
• PDF: Philliphs v. AWH (full text).
• Link: Dennis Crouch's article at Patently-O.com"