Appeal No. 1999-2781
Application No. 08/656,299
1191, 29 USPQ2d 1845, 1848 (Fed. Cir. 1994), the sixth
paragraph of 35 U.S.C.
§ 112 permits an applicant to express an element in a claim
for a combination as a means or step for performing a
specified function without the recital of structure, materials
or acts in support thereof, and mandates that such a claim
limitation
"shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure,
materials, or acts described in the specification or
equivalents thereof."
In this case, it is clear to us, as has been urged by
appellant on pages 13-15 of the brief, that the pawl
arrangements of the applied prior art references are not the
same as that described in appellant's specification and also
that the examiner has not in any way attempted to articulate
any reasoning as to why the structure of the applied
references, particularly that of Willey, should be considered
to be an equivalent of that which is set forth in appellant's
specification. For this additional reason, we refuse to
sustain the examiner's rejection of claims 25 and 30, and of
claims 26 through 28 and 31 through 33 which, respectively,
depend therefrom.
13
Page: Previous 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007