Appeal No. 1999-0960
Application No. 08/785,437
construction does not in our view meet the requirement of
claim 1 (or of
claim 13, the other independent claim on appeal) that the mask
is joined to the fold backs "along substantially an entire
length of the fold backs," since in Wright the mask (screen)
is joined to the fold backs (edges) only at spaced points, not
along substantially their entire length, as claimed.
The examiner also seems to believe that claim 1 is
readable on Wright because "the fold backs [of Wright] are
statistically bound to directly align with the wires of the
protective mask at numerous locations along the surface of the
protective mask" (answer, page 6), noting that in Fig. 7 some
of Wright’s edges 4a (fold backs) coincide with the vertical
wires of the screen 3a. However, even if some of Wright’s
screen wires might by chance be positioned to extend along
substantially an entire length of the fold backs, that would
not meet the recitation in claim 1 that "all the fold backs"
are so joined to the mask. Likewise,
claim 13 is not readable on Wright because, although that
claim does not use the word "all", we consider that,
consistent with appellants’ disclosure, the claim language
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