Appeal No. 94-4009 Paper No. 32
Application No. 07/953,716 Page 8
clearing up the ambiguity. As noted above, the purposes of
the claim are met by inhibiting further atherosclerotic
intimal thickening (Paper No. 1 (Spec.) at 2 and 6, supra).
The specification reports suppression, not prevention, of the
early phase of atherosclerotic intimal thickening (at 6). It
also describes the compounds as acting directly on the
atherosclerotic lesion (at 2), which appears to occur after
intimal thickening has begun (cf. Bowman at 23.61, col. 2).
During prosecution, we are obliged to construe claims as
broadly as is reasonable in view of the specification. In re
Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir.
1989). At the hearing, counsel was invited to point to a
definition in the specification of "prior to atherosclerotic
intimal thickening". He indicated that the phrase is defined
on page one of the specification. Although page one of the
specification does not define "prior to atherosclerotic
intimal thickening" with reasonable clarity, deliberateness,
and precision, cf. In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480, 31
USPQ2d 1671, 1674 (Fed. Cir. 1994), it does offer the
following explanation of the initiation and progression of
intimal thickening (Paper No. 1 (Spec.) at 1-2 (emphasis
added)):
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