Appeal No. 97-4083
Application 08/422,933
Claims 7 through 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as
failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter the appellant regards
as the invention.
Claims 7 through 10 contain various references to an opaque border which are
completely lacking in proper antecedent basis. As a result, the scope of these claims is
indefinite. Claim 9 is additionally indefinite in that the recitation therein that the larger
decorative frame is along the perimeter of the “inner” edge of the opaque border is
inconsistent with preceding claim language and the underlying specification which
indicate that a different decorative frame is along the perimeter of the inner edge of the
border.2
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Lawrence.
Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses,
expressly or under principles of inherency, each and every element of a claimed invention.
RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388
(Fed. Cir. 1984). It is not necessary that the reference teach what the subject application
teaches, but only that the claim read on something disclosed in the reference, i.e., that all
of the limitations in the claim be found in or fully met by the
2The comment on page 1 of Appendix A to the main brief demonstrates that the
appellant already is aware of the above noted inconsistency in claim 9.
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