Appeal No. 2007-0358
Application 10/873,477
Analysis
With respect to the anticipation rejection of claims 1-4 and 6-9, Applicants
state that “claims 1-4 and 6-9 shall rise or fall with respect to the patentability...of
claim 1.” (Amended Appeal Brief at 10.)
With respect to the obviousness rejection of claims 5, 10, and 11, the
applicants do not contest the examiner’s final rejection of claims 5 and 10.
Accordingly, we pro forma affirm the examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection as
to claims 5 and 10, leaving only claim 11 for consideration in this appeal.
We therefore confine our discussion of the rejections to claims 1 and 11.
See 37 CFR § 41.37(c)(vii).
Claim Construction
Absent any scope limiting definition in the specification for claim terms, we
do not limit broad claim terms based on specification passages. In re Bigio, 381
F.3d at 1324, 72 USPQ2d at 1211.
Here, Applicants do not identify any description in the specification that
would serve to further limit the scope of appealed claim 1 from that derived from
its plain meaning. Thus, we give appealed claim 1 its plain meaning as would be
understood by one skilled in the relevant art. In particular, we construe the term
10
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