Determining the meaning of patent claims necessarily requires the judge tobreak the text of a claim into discrete elements or units of textcorresponding to the elements or units that comprise the claimed invention- essentially, organizing the language of the claims into chunks or quantaof text. Define an element narrowly - limit it to a single word, say - andyou will tend to narrow the resulting patent, because to prove infringementthe patentee must show that each word has a corresponding structure in theaccused device. By contrast, defining an element broadly tends to broadenthe patent, because it permits the text to read on a greater range ofaccused devices.For each discrete packet identified, the courts must determine the meaningof the constituent words. They can assign those words definitions thatrange from narrow, specific meanings to broad, general meanings. Indetermining the meaning of terms within a particular element, judgespracticing patent claim interpretation are engaged in an exercise that tosome degree resembles the famous levels of abstraction test articulated byJudge Learned Hand for analysis of infringement under copyright law'sidea/expression doctrine.There are no hard and fast standards in the law by which to make the rightdecision as to either the size of the textual element or the level ofabstraction at which it will be evaluated. Indeed, the indeterminacy is soacute that courts generally don't acknowledge that they are even engagingin either inquiry. They define an element almost arbitrarily, and even whenjudges disagree as to the proper definition they can offer no principledbasis for doing so. The problem may be worse than a simple failure toacknowledge subconscious decisions that affect the scope of a patent,however. This indeterminacy may well be inherent in the process of mappingwords to things, as modern literary theorists suggest. While courts purportto rely on the ordinary or plain meaning of the words of a patent claim,there may simply be no such thing.If we can't define the metes and bounds of the invention in any meaningfulway, we might instead start with the patentee's invention itself,construing patent claims narrowly and in light of the actual invention whenthe claim terms are ambiguous. Courts could then supplement this narrowerclaim construction with a doctrine of equivalents analysis, which wouldpermit them to decide how broadly to apply the principle of the invention.