Appeal No. 96-1536
Application 08/136,241
(CCPA 1977). The inquiry into satisfaction of the written
description requirement is factual and depends on the nature
of the invention and the amount of knowledge imparted to those
skilled in the art by the disclosure. In re Wertheim, 541
F.2d 257, 262, 191 USPQ 90, 96 (CCPA 1976). Satisfaction of
the "written description" requirement does not require in
ipsis verbis antecedence in the originally filed application.
In re Lukach, 442 F.2d 967, 969, 169 USPQ 795, 796 (CCPA
1971). The question, therefore, is whether the originally
filed application would have reasonably conveyed to a person
of ordinary skill in the art that applicants invented the
subject matter later claimed by them including the limitations
in question. In re Smythe, 480 F.2d 1376, 1382, 178 USPQ 279,
284 (CCPA 1973).
As correctly noted by appellants at page 2 of their
Reply Brief, the examiner has improperly focused on a process
step which has been eliminated from claim 2 rather than
focusing on what is now being claimed by appellants in amended
claim 2. Claim 2, as amended, now describes a method of
fabricating a trench capacitor by forming a trench with four
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