Appeal No. 96-1560
Application 08/084,366
consideration, in reaching our decision, the appellants’ arguments set forth in the brief
along with the examiner’s rationale in support of the rejections and arguments in rebuttal
set forth in the examiner’s answer.
It is our view, after consideration of the record before us, that the individual
disclosures of Powell and Ertz do not fully meet the invention as recited in claims 26-46
and 48-54. We are also of the view that the evidence relied upon and the level of skill in
the particular art would not have suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art the
obviousness of the invention as set forth in claim 47. Accordingly, we reverse.
We consider first the rejection of claims 26-46 and 48-54 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
being anticipated by the disclosures of Powell or Ertz. Anticipation is established only
when a single prior art reference discloses, expressly or under the principles of inherency,
each and every element of a claimed invention as well as disclosing structure which is
capable of performing the recited functional limitations. RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital Data
Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir.), cert. dismissed, 468
U.S. 1228 (1984); W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 1554, 220
USPQ 303, 313 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984).
The final rejection basically makes a blanket anticipation rejection of claims 26-46
and 48-54 on Powell or Ertz without any meaningful analysis. That is, the final rejection
does not indicate how the examiner is reading the claims on the disclosures of Powell and
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