Appeal No. 2006-1887
Application No. 10/725,837
improperly limiting a claim to a particular or preferred embodiment. See Playtex,
400 F.3d at 907, 73 USPQ2d at 2015.
As for the prosecution history of the present application, in the remarks
accompanying the amendment filed October 28, 2004, in which the language
“substantially the entire length of” was added to claims 1 and 5, the appellant
pointed out that the intent of appellant’s invention is to apply “a generally uniform
pressure” (remarks, pp. 4 and 5) to treat lymphedema, as contrasted with the bands
4 of Myers that are intended to locally compress the limb, not provide uniform
pressure over the length of the bandage (remarks, p. 4) and that the amendment to
claims 1 and 5 was intended to clarify that distinction over the localized
compression application of Myers (remarks, pp. 4 and 5). In light of the above
prosecution history, we understand the claim limitation “over substantially the
entire length of the first sleeve [TPS]” to require a second or outer sleeve that
extends over a significantly larger portion of the length of the inner sleeve than the
bands 4 of Myers so as to apply a generally uniform pressure, that is, a pressure
distribution that is not as localized as that applied by the bands 4 of Myers.
As illustrated in Fig. 7 of Deasy, the sleeve 46 is slid over or overlaps
significantly more than half of the length of the arm portion 18 in a region
extending from well above the elbow to well below the elbow of the user, thus
applying a generally uniform pressure along the length of the arm portion 18, as
contrasted with localized regions of compression as effected by the bands 4 of
Myers. The overlap of the sleeve 46 over the arm portion 18 thus satisfies the
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