Appeal No. 1998-1472 Page 16
Application No. 08/427,721
Anticipation of Claims 142, 143, 151, 152, 166, and 168
The appellant argues, “the Examiner has failed to show
that Takeda teaches the claimed plane-wave light beam or the
counterpropogating focused light beam.” (Appeal Br. at 11.)
“The examiner respectfully disagrees.” (Examiner’s Answer at
4.)
“In the patentability context, claims are to be given
their broadest reasonable interpretations. Moreover,
limitations are not to be read into the claims from the
specification.” In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 1184, 26
USPQ2d 1057, 1059 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (citing In re Zletz, 893
F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989)).
Here, the appellants attempt to read limitations from the
specification into representative claim 151. The claim
specifies no counterpropogating beam. Accordingly, the
appellants' reliance on this limitation for patentability is
not persuasive. Instead, representative claim 151 specifies
in pertinent part the following limitations: “reading data
elements using an electro-optical head by detecting one of (i)
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