Appeal No. 95-2533
Application No. 08/018,125
set forth a “non-porous wall portion” (emphasis ours), it is well
settled that the claims in a patent application are to be given
their broadest reasonable interpretation during prosecution of a
patent application (In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d
1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989)) and limitations from a pending
application’s specification will not be read into the claims
(Sjolund v. Musland, 847 F.2d 1573, 1581-82, 6 USPQ2d 2020, 2027
(Fed. Cir. 1988)). Turning to the appellant’s specification, it
is stated therein that the flexible barrier is “in the form of a
thin flexible enclosure wall 40 made of a material such as rubber
that is non-porous with respect to the fluid 38” (page 5, lines
14-16). Accordingly, consistent with the appellant’s
specification, one of ordinary skill in this art would interpret
“non-porous” as used in the claims to mean -- non-porous with
respect to shock-absorbing fluid contained within the flexible
barrier --.
Inasmuch as the French patent discloses that the fluid
contained within the flexible barrier B’ is “an appropriate
mixture of wax and grease” (translation, page 4, line 23) or “cup
grease” (translation, page 3, line 9), there is a sound basis to
conclude that the grease-covered wall portion of the felt-covered
white wool wad B’ is non-porous with respect to the fluid
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