Appeal No. 2001-1848
Application 08/932,988
Applying the foregoing principles to the present case, the
items of evidence (namely appellant’s specification, the cited
Dawson patent, the other patents cited on page 2 of appellant’s
reply brief and the Cortland catalog) establish that a fly-
fishing line and a leader are separate and distinct components
of a fishing rod assembly. Thus, the recitation of a fly-
fishing line in appealed claim 1 is not broad enough to read on
Dawson’s leader. Dawson’s light and dark bands are located in
the leader rather than the fly line itself. In contrast,
appealed claim 1 expressly provides that the light and dark
indicator bands are located in the fly-fishing line that is
adapted to be attached to the leader. Since this limitation is
not met by Dawson, Dawson does not anticipate the subject
matter of claim 1.
The examiner’s decision to reject claim 1 under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is therefore reversed.
This application is remanded to the examiner to consider
whether claim 1 (as amended subsequent to the filing of this
application) and dependent claims 3-5 are based on a
specification which, as filed, satisfies the description
requirement in the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112. As
noted supra, appellant’s specification describes the strike
indicator as being defined by dark spaced apart bands 38. In
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007