Appeal No. 95-3184
Application 07/981,910
description requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph. The
test for determining compliance with the written description
requirement is whether the disclosure of the application as
originally filed reasonably conveys to the artisan that the
inventor had possession at that time of the later claimed subject
matter, rather than the presence or absence of literal support in
the specification for the claim language. In re Kaslow, 707 F.2d
1366, 1375, 217 USPQ 1089, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 1983). The content of
the drawings may also be considered in determining compliance
with the written description requirement. Id.
Claim 1 recites a method for ventilating a patient airway
comprising, inter alia, the steps of supplying to the airway
during the inspiratory phase a plurality of pulses of small
volumes of gas and adding these pulses in succession to provide
successively greater volumes of gas successively increasing in
pulsatile form the pressure of the gas in the airway by adding
the successively greater volumes of gas. The claim language at
issue, read in context, requires that the successive increase in
pulsatile form of the pressure of the gas in the airway be caused
“solely” by the successive addition of the small volumes of gas.
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