Appeal No. 1997-3254
Application No. 08/495,330
wherein the “not shown” conductive connection is made. The section of cable would then become a
“coaxial cable,” even using appellants’ implied definition that the inner and outer conductors are to be
electrically isolated from each other.
Contrary to the explicit disclosure in Berends of an internal conductor and a separate
conductive layer, appellants provide a dictionary definition of “conductor” in support of the argument
that since the separate conductors are connected, there is but one “conductor.” (See Brief, page 8.)
Notwithstanding the fact that appellants have not selected the broadest definition, but only one of nine
given for “conductor” -- contrary to the guidelines for claim interpretation during patent prosecution --
we fail to see how the selected definition might tend to show that the separate conductive materials
disclosed in Berends must be viewed as a single “conductor.”
Finally, although our finding that the subject matter of Claim 1 is anticipated by Berends does
not rest on it, we note a portion of the Berends disclosure that appellants do not address. Column 1,
lines 62 through 71 of Berends discloses that there may be “two or more mutually insulated internal
conductors in the core of foamed material.” One of the internal conductors “is conductively connected
to the conductive layer of lacquer.” By implication, one (or more) of the internal conductors are not
connected to the conductive layer of lacquer. Such arrangement also meets the limitations of
appellants’ Claim 1, even if one were to read the urged limitation into the claim that the inner and the
outer conductor are “conductively isolated” from each other.
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