CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well --

MR. GANNON: But otherwise, the claim
construction that is adopted in -- in -- along the way
in getting to upholding the patent claim isn't going to
bind the district court any more than the district court
claim construction would bind a different district court
or the PTO.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well, can it say
that I understand what PTO thinks the scope of the
patent is, but my responsibility is to interpret it
pursuant to a different standard, and under my different
standard I have a different result?

MR. GANNON: Yes. That -- that could be the
difference, and that is exactly what the courts have
repeatedly recognized, going back, as my friend noted,
to the 1924 decision from the D.C. circuit in the Carr
case, which recognized that the PTO and the courts are
using different standards precisely because you can
still clarify the scope of the claim when you're before
the PTO.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: So if the district
court interprets the patent, is -- is that binding on
the PTO?

MR. GANNON: No.

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: And if the PTO
interprets the patent, that's not binding on the
district court.

MR. GANNON: That's right. And the same
thing is -- it's --

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Well --

MR. GANNON: The same thing --

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: I'm sorry. It just
seems to me that that's a bizarre way to conduct
legal -- decide a legal question. I mean, who -- how
does it work? Whoever gets to the judgment first, or --

Amazing comments in these minutes.

doni