Appeal No. 98-1019
Application 08/500,782
extent the flexibility of the stem may depart from the
flexibility of the application member and yet be regarded as
having “substantially” the same flexibility as the application
member. In particular, the discussion on page 4 of the
specification as to what constitutes a stem having flexibility
“similar to” that of the application member does not suffice
in this regard. This is so because the statement on page 4
that the flexibility of the stem is chosen so that the
relationship 0.3f < F < 3f is satisfied, where F is the force
to be applied to bend the stem and f is the force necessary to
bend the application member, is so broad that it cannot be
seriously considered a reasonable standard or guideline for
determining the scope of the word “substantially” in line 4 of
claim 1.
An additional source of confusion is the recitation in
claim 1 which reads “whereby upon applying the product to a
surface, the stem and the application member form a curve with
a substantially constant curvature.” It is not clear whether
this recitation sets forth (1) an additional requirement of
the applicator above and beyond that called for in the first
four lines of the claim, (2) a definition of what constitutes
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