Appeal No. 1998-2981
Application No. 08/763,390
claim, words of the claim are generally given their ordinary
and accustomed meaning unless it appears from the
specification or the file history that they were used
differently by the inventor. Carroll Touch, Inc. v. Electro
Mechanical Sys., Inc., 15 F.3d 1573, 1577, 27 USPQ2d 1836,
1840. Although an inventor is indeed free to define the
specific terms used to describe his or her invention, this
must be done with reasonable clarity, deliberateness, and
precision. In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1479, 31 USPQ2d 1671,
1674 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
In rejecting claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103, the Examiner
bears the initial burden of presenting a prima facie case of
obviousness (see In re Rijckaert, 9 F.3d 1531, 1532, 28 USPQ2d
1955, 1956 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443,
1446, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992)), which is
established when the teachings of the prior art itself would
appear to have suggested the claimed subject matter to one of
ordinary skill in the art (see In re Bell, 991 F.2d 781, 783,
26 USPQ2d 1529, 1531 (Fed. Cir. 1993)).
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007