Appeal No. 1999-1990 Page 6
Application No. 08/635,599
Claim 1
The main issue presented by the appellants in this appeal
is one of claim construction-viz., whether claim 1 under
appeal requires the spray nozzle to spray water. We conclude
that it does not.
In drawing this conclusion we rely on the premise that
the PTO is required to give claims their broadest reasonable
interpretation during prosecution. See, e.g., In re Morris,
127 F.3d 1048, 1054, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In
re Sneed, 710 F.2d 1544, 1548, 218 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir.
1983). Moreover, limitations are not to be read into the
claims from the specification. In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d
1181, 1184, 26 USPQ2d 1057, 1059 (Fed. Cir. 1993) citing In re
Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir.
1989).
In addition, we note that the manner or method in which a
machine is to be utilized is not germane to the issue of
patentability of the machine itself. In re Casey, 370 F.2d
576, 580, 152 USPQ 235, 238 (CCPA 1967). A statement of
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