Appeal No. 1995-0770
Application No. 07/929,457
The statute requires that the specification provide enough description that persons
of skill in the art would recognize that applicant is the inventor of the claimed subject
matter. In re Gosteli, 872 F.2d 1008, 1012, 10 USPQ2d 1614, 1618 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re
Wilder, 736 F.2d 1516, 1520, 222 USPQ 369, 372 (Fed. Cir. 1984). Also, it is well settled
that a claim limitation need not be supported with the identical words. In re Wertheim, 541
F.2d 257, 265, 191 USPQ 90, 98 (CCPA 1976); In re Lukach, 442 F.2d 967, 969, 169
USPQ 795, 796 (CCPA 1971).
To the extent the examiner’s rejection may be based on lack of support for the word
“constant”, we have no doubt that appellants’ originally filed specification satisfies the
statutory requirement with its description of a selected temperature being maintained. The
passage of the specification quoted above plainly states that the selected temperature for
the first polymerization stage is “about 10EC below the 10 hour half-life decomposition
temperature”. (Our emphasis) In the context of this description, “substantially constant” is
a reasonably precise expression for maintaining a selected temperature that is “about”
10EC below a reference temperature.
We do not find the absence of words such as “approximately” or “near” to be
dispositive because elaborating the word “about” with more terms such as “approximately”
or “near” would be superfluous. “It is not required that the application describe the claim
limitations in greater detail than the invention warrants.” Martin v. Mayer, 823 F.2d 500,
505, 3 USPQ2d 1333, 1337 (Fed. Cir. 1987).
7
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007