Appeal No. 1997-1506 Page 9
Application No. 08/442,413
opinion that the appellants' original disclosure is sufficient
to support "a device by which opposing forces are applied to
said lever element" in claim 15.4
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the examiner's
rejection of claim 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph,
as lacking support in the appellants' original disclosure.
Our conclusion is the opposite, however, with regard to
the examiner's rejection of claim 11. The examiner asserts
that the appellants' original disclosure lacks support for the
spindle driven arrangement being “for generating a pair of
opposing forces” (answer, page 6). While the appellants'5
original disclosure (specification, pages 4 and 8) provides
support for a spindle drive to effect a force coupling between
the free end (38) of the bendable support (34) and the support
(16), we find nothing in the original disclosure which would
have reasonably conveyed that the spindle drive arrangement
itself generates a “pair of opposing forces.”
4In reaching this conclusion, we note that we consider "device" to be
sufficiently broad to encompass either a single actuator or multiple
actuators.
5This language was added by amendment in Paper No. 9.
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