Appeal No. 96-0974
Application 08/024,299
to us why the examiner believes these limitations are
satisfied by Kohno.
Finally, appellants argue that the examiner failed to6
comply with the requirements of § 112, ¶ 6 and In re Donaldson
Co., 16 F.3d 1189, 1194-95, 29 USPQ2d 1845, 1850 (Fed. Cir.
1994) (in banc), because he did not compare each of
appellants’ means-plus-function elements with the disclosed
structure in Kohno which he believes is identical or
equivalent to appellants’ disclosed structure for performing
those functions. Specifically, appellants complain that the
examiner, rather than reading their claimed "means for
discovering" and "line selection means" on the apparatus shown
in Kohno’s drawing and described in his specification, read
them on the "switch means" and "check means" recited in
Kohno’s claim 1 (col. 4, lines 24-27). According to
appellants, the examiner was required to construe Kohno’s
means-plus-function claim limitations in accordance with the
provisions of § 112, ¶ 6 in order to determine whether those
limitations anticipate the means-plus-function limitations of
6Brief at 15-18.
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