id	author	title	date	pages	extension	mime	words	sentence	flesch	summary	cache	txt
iiclr-17577	Hatter Jr., John P.	The Doctrine of Equivalents in Patent Litigation: An Analysis of the Epilady Controversy	1995	34	.pdf	application/pdf	14111	822	63	The doctrine of equivalents emerged to deal with this problem.4 Some courts have doubted whether the doctrine of equivalents automatically should be considered in every case where literal infringement is not present: Application of the doctrine of equivalents is the exception, however, not the rule, for if the public comes to believe (or fear) that the language of patent claims can never be relied on, and that the doctrine of equivalents is simply the second prong of every infringement charge, regularly available to extend protection beyond the scope of the claims, then claims will cease to serve their intended purpose. In contrast, at trial before the English Patents Court, the Smooth and Silky was held not to have infringed on the Epilady patent.93 The Epilady dispute serves to illustrate the substantive contradictions among the national approaches in regard to patent claim interpretation.	cache/iiclr-17577.pdf	txt/iiclr-17577.txt