Appeal No. 96-0311
Application No. 08/155,771
understand, from the instant disclosure and the explanation of
counsel at the hearing of January 13, 1999, that this term is
applied to describe deformities on the disk, as in portions
either raised or lowered with respect to an ideal flat, smooth
surface, between inner and outer peripheries of the disk, thus
excluding the peripheral edges of the disk from being
described as “bent.” Further, a “reference length” is
defined, at page 6 of the specification, as the “linear line
AB” wherein the linear line AB is shown in Figure 1 as the
shortest distance between two points A and B on a curve 1
representing a “bent portion” of the disk. The greatest value
of deflection of the curved line is called the “maximum
deflection” and this is shown as “2" in Figure 1. Although
not described as such in the disclosure, counsel identified
reference length AB as a “chord.” Thus, if a “chord,” or
line, is drawn from any point on the curve of a deformation on
the surface of the disk to any other point on the deformity
curve, that “chord,” or line, is what is referred to as the
“reference length” and the “greatest value of the deflection”
is the length of a line drawn perpendicular from the reference
length to the maximum point on the curve of the deformity. As
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