Appeal No. 97-2451 Page 7
Application No. 08/260,635
specification provide that the air conducting apparatus 60
provide a constant stream of conditioned ambient air, preferably
at a flow rate of one liter per second or greater. The review
has also revealed that the appellant used the terminology
"rapidly remove" only on page 3 of the specification. Page 3 of
the specification provides that the ends of the strip are rapidly
moved apart, desirably at a rate above 20 cm/second, to rapidly
remove the sealed portion of the strip from the heat seal dies.
However, it would be inappropriate, in view of the claim
differentiation doctrine (the doctrine of claim differentiation
states the presumption that "the difference between claims is
significant." Tandon Corp. v. United States Int'l Trade Comm'n,
831 F.2d 1017, 1023, 4 USPQ2d 1283, 1288 (Fed. Cir. 1987)), to
interpret "rapidly remove" to mean a speed of at least 20
cm/second since dependent claim 14 adds that limitation to claim
1. Accordingly, it is our view that the disclosure does not
provide explicit guidelines defining the terminologies
"substantially below" and "rapidly remove" (claim 1).
Furthermore, there are no guidelines that would be implicit to
one skilled in the art defining the terminologies "substantially
below" and "rapidly remove" as used in claim 1 that would enable
one skilled in the art to ascertain what is meant by
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