Appeal No. 2007-0671 Page 6
Application No. 10/836,174
count presetting switches for presetting a count in the electronic circuit at the
time the housing and canister are combined during initial assembly. Claim 6
depends from and further limits the switches of claim 5. Specifically, claim 6
requires that the one or more switches are positioned within the housing and are
inaccessible to a user of the dispenser after the dispenser as been assembled.
While claims 7-12 do not contain the term “assembly” or “assembled”, they
depend directly or indirectly from claim 5.
The examiner appears to be of the opinion that because the phrase
“during initial assembly” appears in claim 5 and the term “assembled” appears in
claim 6 the claims must be drawn to a process of assembling the claimed
dispenser. See Answer, page 10, wherein the examiner states “[a]ppellant’s use
of the recited claim language recites not only a structural element or product ‘the
presetting switches’ but also a process by which the device or product is to be
assembled ‘combined during initial assembly.’” We disagree.
Claim 5 simply further limits the electronic circuit of claim 1 to include one
or more count presetting switches for presetting a count in the electronic circuit at
the time the housing and canister put together. Stated differently, the electronic
circuit has at least one switch. The purpose of the switch is to preset a count in
the electronic circuit when the housing and canister are put together. Why? So
that the proper number of doses are reported on the display for the particular
medicament in the canister. See, e.g., specification, paragraph 39,
[t]he manufacturer of the medication canister prints the amount of
doses of medication on the canister [7] label. A special sequence
of pressing the set switches [28], [29], [30] at the time of assembly
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