Appeal No. 98-2124 Page 18
Application No. 08/454,898
and a beam portion 8 extending from a second portion of the
housing and that has a bend therein (see Figs. 1 and 7),
wherein the beam portions (1) make contact with a corresponding
contact pad 11 on a circuit board 3 and (2) are resilient in
order to accommodate any unevenness of the surface of the
circuit board 3. Since the beam portions 8 of Yohn are
resilient in order accommodate uneveness in the circuit board
3, they inherently contact the circuit board with a spring
force. Indeed, such inherent contact with a spring force is
confirmed by Baechtle (see, e.g., column 2, lines 30-66). As
we have noted above with respect to the § 103 wherein Biechler
is employed as the primary reference, (1) the designation of
certain of the contacts to be "ground" contacts and others to
be "signal" contacts is merely a statement of intended use
which cannot be relied on to distinguish structure from the
prior art (see, e.g., In re Schreiber, supra, In re Yanush,
supra, and In re Casey, supra) and (2) there is no claim
limitation which would preclude the ends of the beam portions
(i.e., solder tails) from being subsequently soldered.
Therefore, we will sustain the rejection of claims 1, 2, 12 and
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