Appeal No. 97-1626
Application 08/299,123
to cover the corresponding structure described in the
specification and equivalents thereof. In re Donaldson Co.,
Inc., 16 F.3d 1189, 1193, 29 USPQ2d 1845, 1848 (Fed. Cir.
1994). While the step of transferring pallets from a most
downstream one of the intermittent conveyors to the feed back
conveyor and the step of transferring pallets from the feed
back conveyor to a most upstream one of the intermittent
conveyors may perhaps be inferred from appellants’
specification, there is no disclosure, inherent or otherwise,
of any corresponding structure or apparatus for performing
such steps, much less any equivalent structure that is also
covered by the means-plus-function language of claim 1.
Furthermore, the circumstance that the above noted steps of
transferring pallets to and from the feed back conveyor may be
performed by a human being does not provide descriptive
support for the means-plus-function limitations added to claim
1. See Fredkin v. Irasek, 397 F.2d 342, 347-48, 158 USPQ 280,
285 (CCPA), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 980 (1968) and Keeleric v.
Kistler, 128 USPQ 442, 446 (Bd. Pat. Int. 1958), both citing
with approval Wilcox v. Danner, 53 F.2d 711, 716, 12 USPQ 16,
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