Appeal No. 1997-0545
Application 08/224,063
We reverse the ground of rejection of claims 92 through 106 and 108 through 113 under 35
U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Olson and affirm all of the other grounds of rejection.
Rather than reiterate the respective positions advanced by the examiner and appellants, we refer
to the examiner’s answer and to appellants’ principal and reply briefs for a complete exposition thereof.
Opinion
In order to consider the issues in this appeal involved with the application of the prior art to the
claimed invention encompassed by appealed claim 92 in the grounds of rejection advanced by the
examiner on appeal, we first must determine the invention encompassed by this claim as it stands before
us, mindful that we must give the broadest reasonable interpretation to the terms thereof consistent with
appellants’ specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in this art. In re Morris, 127
F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321-22,
13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989). In doing so, the terms in the appealed claims must be given
their ordinary meaning unless another meaning is intended by appellants. See, e.g., Morris, 127 F.3d at
1055-56, 44 USPQ2d at 1029 (“It is the applicants’ burden to precisely define the invention, not the
PTO’s. See 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 2 [statute omitted]. ”); Zletz, supra (“During patent prosecution the
pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow. When the applicant
states the meaning that the claim terms are intended to have, the claims are examined with that meaning,
in order to achieve a complete exploration of the applicant’s invention and its relation to the prior art.”).
The phrase of claim 92 that is at the center of the arguments submitted by appellants is “wherein
the reaction product is formed and cast without the addition of externally supplied heat.” We agree with
the line of reasoning set forth by the examiner with respect to this phrase (answer, page 5). In this
respect, we find that appellants define “the term externally supplied heat . . . [as] the intentional addition
of heat to a system from a separate and independent heat source such as steam” (specification, page 9).
Appellants “specifically [exclude from the definition] the addition of heat to a system caused by
variances in ambient conditions and exothermic reactions occurring between reactants in the system”
(id.). We observe from appellants’ specification (page 13) and from Schumann (e.g., pages 1 (“intrinsic
heating”) and 8 (“self-actuated heating”)) that the reaction between an alkali metal silicate and an alkali
metal hydroxide is an exothermic reaction. We further observe that the term “ambient” is defined by
- 3 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007