Appeal No. 97-3198
Application No. 08/502,408
claims, nor does it appear in the specification. With regard
to the relationship between the opposed side surfaces of
adjacent arms and teeth, the specification teaches only that
they “at least partially overlap” (pages 4 and 6; emphasis
added), which clearly provides no support for “substantially
entirely.” Some degree of overlap is shown in the drawing,
but no amplifying information is provided from which the
percent of overlap shown can be determined. Thus, from the
original disclosure, there is no support for the phrase in
issue, that is, one of ordinary skill in the art receives no
guidance in the specification with regard to the meaning to be
attached to “substantially entirely” along an entire length.
The test for determining compliance with the written
description requirement is whether the disclosure of the
application as originally filed reasonably conveys to the
artisan that the inventor had possession at that time of the
later claimed subject matter. See Vas-Cath Inc. v. Mahurkar,
935 F.2d 1555, 1562-1563, 19 USPQ2d 1111, 1116 (Fed. Cir.
1991). Here, we are of the view that the original disclosure
does not meet this requirement with regard to the
“substantially entirely” limitation later added by the
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007