Appeal No. 97-3661 Application No. 08/456,692 walls of claim 38 and the form of claim 42. As far as the limitation that the funnel be of a “unitary one-piece continuous construction” is concerned, we agree that it is not explicitly found in Melvin. Melvin does suggest, however, that the funnel be made of plastic (column 2, line 62), and that mouth and the spout be “integral” (column 2, lines 49-50). It is our opinion that one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to make the Melvin funnel of unitary one-piece continuous construction for the self-evident advantages thereof, which would have been known to the artisan working in this field, such as ease of molding, strength and smoothness. Suggestion is found in the common knowledge and common sense that should be accorded to one of ordinary skill in the art. In re Bozek, supra. As for claims 24, 29, 34, 39 and 43, we first point out that during examination before the Patent and Trademark Office, the pending claims in an application must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow, without reading any limitations from the specification into the claims (see In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989)), for if the limitations in the specification were required to be read into the claims there would be no need for claims and no basis for the requirement of 35 U.S.C. § 112 that the specification conclude 6Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007