Appeal No. 1998-0212 Page 10
Reissue Application No. 07/837,588
35 U.S.C. § 251, ¶ 1, specifies in pertinent part the
following remedy.
Whenever any patent is, through error without any
deceptive intention, deemed wholly or partly
inoperative or invalid, by reason of a defective
specification or drawing, or by reason of the
patentee claiming more or less than he had a right
to claim in the patent, the Commissioner shall, on
surrender of such patent ... reissue the patent for
the invention disclosed in the original patent ....
“’[T]he whole purpose of the [reissue] statute, so far as
claims are concerned, is to permit limitations to be added to
claims that are too broad or to be taken from claims that are
too narrow.’" In re Weiler, 790 F.2d 1576, 1580, 229 USPQ
673, 675 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (quoting In re Handel, 312 F.2d 943,
948, 136 USPQ 460, 464 (CCPA 1963)). “That is what the
statute means in referring to ‘claiming more or less than he
had a right to claim.’" Handel, 312 F.2d at 948, 136 USPQ at
464. Here, the appellant fails to show error by the PTO, let
alone error correctable by reissue.
The examiner mailed the Notice of Allowability, (‘176
Application, Paper No. 20), which included the Notice of
Allowance and Issue Fee Due, on March 13, 1989. The Notice of
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