Appeal No. 2002-0635
Application No. 09/534,583
ability in this opinion are not affected thereby. Therefore, the
entry of the latest version of the claims in the amendment
associated with the appeal brief may be separately handled by the
examiner after this appeal.
Because we find ourselves in general agreement with the
appellants’ positions with respect to the initially stated
rejection in the brief and reply brief, we reverse this initially
stated rejection as well as all the remaining rejections.
Anticipation is established only when a single prior art
reference discloses, expressly or under the principles of
inherency, each and every element of a claimed invention as well
as disclosing structure which is capable of performing the
recited functional limitations. RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital
Data System, Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed.
Cir.); cert. dismissed, 468 U.S. 1228 (1984); W.L. Gore and
Associates, Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1554, 220 USPQ
303, 313 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984).
The positions set forth by the examiner in the initial
statement of the rejection at pages 3 and 4 of the answer do not
address all of the limitations of representative claim 32 on
4
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