Appeal No. 94-3000 Application 07/914,654 examiner's rejection of process claims 17 through 20, 25 and 26. The rejection of apparatus claims 21 through 23 as being unpatentable over the disclosures of the Steck, Kremer and Kurokawa references, however, is on a different footing. Appellants state that none of the references relied upon by the examiner renders the claimed lifting means obvious or anticipated. The lifting means recited in claim 21 read as follows: (c) lifting means for lifting said at least one substrate from said bath at a speed such that substantially all of said liquid remains in said bath, said lifting means including knife-shaped means for pushing said at least one substrate upwardly at a lowest portion of said at least one substrate, We interpret this means-plus-function limitations as the corresponding structure in the specification or equivalents thereof. See, e.g., In re Donaldson Co. Inc., 16 F.3d 1189, 29 USPQ2d 1845 (Fed. Cir. 1994)(in banc); Laitram Corp v. Rexnord, Inc., 939 F.2d 1533, 1536, 19 USPQ2d 1367, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 1991) ("[t]he recitation of some structure in a means plus function element does not preclude the applicability of 11Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007