Appeal No. 97-1143
Application 08/115,881
the specific pages and lines relied on for support were not
identified. An amendment to the claims or the addition of a
new claim must be supported by the description of the
invention in the application as filed. In re Wright, 866 F.2d
422, 424, 9 USPQ2d 1649, 1651 (Fed. Cir. 1989).
We remand this application to the examiner to determine
whether the recitation of "approximately midway" has
appropriate descriptive support in the original disclosure.
2. Definiteness
Independent claims 1, 10 and 11 require the second wheel
set or the center beam to be "approximately midway" between
the front and rear of the ladder stand base. The word
"approximately" is a word of degree. When a word of degree
such as “approximately” is used in a claim, it must be
determined whether the underlying specification provides some
standard or guideline for measuring that degree. In other
words, it must be determined whether one of ordinary skill in
the art would understand what is claimed when the claim is
read in light of the specification. Seattle Box Co. v.
Industrial Crating & Packing Inc., 731 F.2d 818, 826, 221 USPQ
15
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