Appeal No. 95-4336
Application 08/057,898
appellants consistently refer to a "magnet means" rather than
to a "magnetic means". It therefore appears that they
intended "a magnetic means" in line 6 of claim 16 to be "a
magnet means", and we will read the claim as if it had been so
amended in considering its patentability under 35 USC § 102
and § 103.
Thus construed, we do not regard the "magnet means"
recited in claim 16 as being a "means" within the provisions
of the sixth paragraph of § 112. Merely because a named
element of a claim is followed by the word "means" does not
automatically make that element a "means-plus-function"
element under § 112, sixth para-graph. Cole v. Kimberly-Clark
Corp., 102 F.3d 524, 530, 141 USPQ2d 1001, 1006 (Fed. Cir.
1996), cert. denied, 118 S.Ct. 56 (1997). That paragraph
provides that an element in a claim "may be expressed as a
means . . . for performing a specified function", but in the
present case, no function whatsoever is recited as being
performed by the "magnet means". We therefore construe "a
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