Appeal No. 2002-2132
Application 09/124,907
DISCUSSION
I. The 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, rejection
This rejection rests on the examiner’s determination that
the appellant’s specification fails to comply with the written
description requirement of § 112, ¶ 1, because it lacks support
for the limitations in independent claim 1, 17 through 19 and 23
requiring the tensioning member to provide tension or force “in
at least a direction tangential to the cylinder.” According to
the examiner, “[b]ased on the disclosure, the lock-up device 28,
including a tensioning member and a base, is meant to lock the
base plate and elastic coating in a position around the cylinder,
not to provide any kind of tension in a tangential direction of
the cylinder” (answer, page 5).
The test for determining compliance with the written
description requirement is whether the disclosure of the
application as originally filed reasonably conveys to the artisan
that the inventor had possession at that time of the later
claimed subject matter, rather than the presence or absence of
literal support in the specification for the claim language.
In re Kaslow, 707 F.2d 1366, 1375, 217 USPQ 1089, 1096 (Fed. Cir.
1983). The content of the drawings may also be considered in
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