Appeal No. 1999-0944
Application No. 08/890,252
1168, 1175, 37 USPQ2d 1578, 1583-84 (Fed. Cir. 1996). If a
person of ordinary skill in the art would have understood the
inventor to have been in possession of the claimed invention
at the time of filing, even
if every nuance of the claims is not explicitly described in
the
specification, then the adequate written description
requirement is met. Id., 76 F.3d at 1175, 37 USPQ2d at 1584.
In this case we do not consider the reasons given by the
examiner sufficient to make out a prima facie case of
noncompliance with the “written description” requirement. In
this regard, while it is true that the terms “first” and
“second” in reissue claims 1, 3 and 4 are broader than the
terms “upper” and “lower” used in patent claims 1, 3 and 4,
this circumstance alone is not sufficient to warrant a
conclusion that the reissue claims lack descriptive support.
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