Appeal No. 97-4165
Application No. 08/596,553
conclusion that Suga fails to meet this requirement, and
therefore the Section 102(b) rejection cannot be sustained.
Claim 1 is directed to a method for evacuating gas from a
gas-tight envelope containing solid or particulate material
“disposed in a tray having sidewalls with [an] overhanging lip.”
It recites the step of inserting an elongated vacuum probe
through an opening in the envelope “to a position under said lip”
(emphasis added). The examiner has interpreted “under” to mean
simply that the probe must be at a lower level height-wise than
the lip, and therefore finds that probes 23 of Suga meet this
step of the claim. The appellant argues that this interpretation
is not in keeping with the meaning that is established in his
specification, a conclusion with which we agree.
In proceedings before the PTO, claims in an application are
to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent
with the specification, and should be read in the light of the
specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill
in the art. See In re Sneed and Young, 710 F.2d 1544, 1548, 218
USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1983). In our opinion, one of ordinary
skill in the art would have recognized from a review of the
appellant’s disclosure that “under” in claim 1 references the
overhanging lip of the tray, and should be interpreted to mean
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