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Ex parte ARVIDSSON - Page 12Legal Research Home > Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences > 1997 > Ex parte ARVIDSSON - Page 12
Appeal No. 95-3114
Application 08/051,800
3. The device as claimed in claim 1, wherein the anchorage
portions are lamellar and are disposed between a strip and an
adjacent portion of the vehicle body, the anchorage portions
being fixed in this position by fastening means for the strip
which also fasten the anchorage portions in the vehicle body.
Claim 3 requires, first, that the anchorage portions be
“lamellar.” In interpreting this term, we will give it its
“ordinary and accustomed meaning, unless it appears that the
inventor used [it] differently.” Envirotech Corp. v. Al George,
Inc., 730 F.2d 753, 759, 221 USPQ 473, 477 (Fed. Cir. 1984). In
the specification, the term “lamellar” is used only to describe
the anchorage portion 15 of the second embodiment (Fig. 2) (page
3, line 15; page 7, line 36). Anchorage portion 15 is shown in
Fig. 2 as a flat piece, and is described on page 8, line 1, as a
“sheet strip.” This is consistent with the dictionary definition
of “lamellar” as “lamellate”, i.e., “flat; platelike,” and it is 5
evident that the Fig. 1 species does not fit this definition,
since anchorage portion 13 is not flat, but is bent to grasp
projection 9 (page 6, line 29, to page 7, line 1), and has a
projecting tongue 14.
Claim 3 also provides that the anchorage portion is fixed in
position “by fastening means for the [masking or sealing] strip
5 The American College Dictionary (Random House, 1970).
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