Appeal No. 1997-1414
Application 08/406,706
merely states, for example, the purpose or intended use of the invention, then the preamble
is of no significance to claim construction because it cannot be said to constitute or explain
a claim limitation Pitney Bowes, Inc. v. Hewlett-Packard Co., 182 F.3d 1298, 1305, 51
USPQ2d 1161, 1166 (Fed. Cir. 1999).
On this record, the examiner gives no weight to the words “infrared spectrally
sensitized” in his evaluation of the claims and the prior art whereas the appellants submit
that these words provide positive limitations to the claims. Appellants, in their
specification state: [T]he response of a photographic film to radiation exposure (either to
wavelengths of native sensitivity or to regions of the electromagnetic spectrum to which the
grains have been spectrally sensitized) is measured by a sensitometric curve( page 1,
lines 20-23).
Kirk-Othmer indicates that silver halide grains are naturally blue sensitive (page
612). Thus, extending the sensitivity of the silver halide to other regions of the
electromagnetic spectrum requires the addition of a spectral sensitizing dye to the silver
halide grain surface. Kirk-Othmer further indicates that the structural part of the dye
molecule that enables the molecule to absorb visible or infrared light is called a
chromophore and that the length of the chromophore and the nature of the terminal nuclei
are important factors in establishing the wavelengths at which a dye molecule absorbs
incident radiation.
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