Appeal No. 94-3726
Application 07/978,531
page 5) and notes that appellants have provided no evidence
that their blended product is not a solution of the biocide in
the carrier (id., page 6).
During ex parte prosecution, "the PTO applies to the
verbiage of the proposed claims the broadest reasonable
meaning of the words in their ordinary usage as they would be
understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, taking into
account whatever enlightenment by way of definitions or
otherwise that may be afforded by the written description
contained in applicant's specification.” See In re Morris,
127 F.3d 1048, 1054, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
In appealed claim 1, step (a) requires mixing a solid biocide
with a liquid carrier resulting in a desired particle size for
the biocide/carrier concentrate (emphasis added). All of the
applied references mix a solid biocide with a solvent to
produce a solution (e.g., see Tirpak, column 2, lines 54-60,
and Yeager, Example I). If the solvents of the applied
references are considered to be the “liquid carrier” of
appealed claim 1, as apparently argued by the examiner, the
resulting concentrate of the references will not contain
6
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