The Plaintiff will serve infringement contentions in the form of claim charts that compares each of the claim elements to the Defendant's accused products. Depending on the nature of the infringement claim, these infringement contentions may be amended, for example, after a software code review by the Plaintiff, or in response to an adverse decision by the court during the claim construction hearing. The Defendant will serve invalidity contentions in the form of claim charts that identifies why each claim is invalid (e.g., anticipated or rendered obvious by the prior art, indefinite, or not enabled by the specification). In some jurisdictions, the Defendant may also be required to serve non-infringement contentions in the form of claim charts that shows how the Defendant's accused products do not include at least one of the claim elements. Once these contentions have been served (and any amendments allowed by the court), neither party may deviate from these contentions during the litigation. That is, neither party is allowed to present new theories of infringement/non-infringement or invalidity that were not included in the original contentions (or amended contentions).
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