Appeal No. 1999-0700 Page 5
Application No. 08/590,580
process limitations of the claim fail to adequately define the absorbent article which is contacted
with a liquid in the claimed method step, we are not persuaded that the utilization of product-
by-process limitations renders the scope of the claims indefinite.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the examiner's rejection of claims 19-23 under the
second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112.
The anticipation rejection
Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses, expressly or
under the principles of inherency, each and every element of a claimed invention. RCA Corp.
v. Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir.
1984). In other words, there must be no difference between the claimed invention and the
reference disclosure, as viewed by a person of ordinary skill in the field of the invention.
Scripps Clinic & Research Found. v. Genentech Inc., 927 F.2d 1565, 1576, 18 USPQ2d
1001, 1010 (Fed. Cir. 1991). It is not necessary that the reference teaches what the subject
application teaches, but only that the claim reads on something disclosed in the reference, i.e.,
that all of the limitations in the claim be found in or fully met by the reference. Kalman v.
Kimberly Clark Corp., 713 F.2d 760, 772, 218 USPQ 781, 789 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert.
denied, 465 U.S. 1026 (1984).
Kok discloses a process for the preparation of a liquid absorbing material from "fibrous
waste sludge" comprising the steps of partially dewatering the waste sludge to yield a semi-dry
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