Appeal No. 96-3418
Application No. 08/317,135
The Rejection Under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
All five independent claims stand “clearly anticipated”
by Neracher. We have evaluated this rejection on the basis
that anticipation is established only when a single prior art
reference discloses, either expressly or under the principles
of inherency, each and every element of the claimed invention.
See In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480-1481, 31 USPQ2d 1671,
1675 (Fed. Cir. 1994) and In re Spada., 911 F.2d 705, 708, 15
USPQ2d 1655, 1657 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
The threshold issue with regard to this rejection is
whether the subject matter recited in the appellant’s claims
can be read on the structure disclosed in the applied
reference. We begin our analysis on this issue by focusing on
the opening page of the appellant’s specification, where the
appellant states that he has directed his inventive efforts to
improvements to couplings such as that disclosed in Wilcox
U.S. Patent No. 5,323,812. This patent discloses a pressure-
locked coupling comprising a coupler and a nipple, which is
used to transfer natural gas or propane from a source of gas
to a vehicle. As explained by the appellant on page 1 of the
specification, the present invention
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