Appeal No. 1998-2827
Application 08/614,494
corrected brief (Paper No. 10, filed October 14, 1997).
Preliminary Matters
Before addressing the examiner’s rejections, we must
interpret appellant’s claim language. Independent claim 9
calls for “A device for implantation in bone tissue, the
device being a cylinder comprising a threaded section . . .”
(emphasis added).
Terms in claims must be given their plain meaning, unless
appellant has provided another definition in the
specification. See In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d
1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989) and In re Barr, 444 F.2d 588, 597,
170 USPQ 330, 339 (CCPA 1971). In this instance, appellant’s
specification is consistent with the claim terminology noted
above in that it states on page 8 that “The implant 47 is a
solid cylinder with screw threads”; however, the specification
does not attempt to define the term “cylinder.” Turning to
the dictionary definition of “cylinder” for a plain meaning of
that term, we note that “cylinder” is defined as
a. A surface generated by a straight line moving
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