Appeal No. 1998-1562 Page 6
Application No. 08/611,416
that claim 20 does set forth a cooperative relationship of the
elements recited. In addition, the examiner has failed to
cite any passage of the specification or in other statements
of record that would establish that any essential element or
step has been omitted from claim 20 under appeal. The mere
fact that other elements or steps have been disclosed does not
render each and every element or step thereof an essential
element or step. In view of the above, we conclude that claim
20 does define the metes and bounds of the claimed invention
with a reasonable degree of precision and particularity.
For the reasons stated above, the decision of the
examiner to reject claim 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, is reversed. 4
The anticipation issues
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 1, 16 to 18
and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by
4The issues raised by the examiner as to how the elements
are configured and how they cooperate will be considered by
this panel of the Board below.
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