Appeal No. 1999-2365
Application 08/569,999
fasteners which would meet the limitations of independent
claims 1, 14, 28 and 31. Claim 28, for example, recites in
part (c) "each of said fasteners including a first fastening
structure of a first type [e.g., male] and a second fastening
structure of a second type [e.g., female] that is matable with
the first type." The fasteners disclosed by Buchman are not
combined male-female snaps, such as disclosed by appellant in
Fig. 7, but rather appear to be simply conventional male snaps
(designated by "M") and conventional female snaps (designated
by "F"); they are, as shown in Figs. 1, 2 and 3, separate
items. Although pending claims, during patent examination,
must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably
allow, In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322
(Fed. Cir. 1989), we do not consider that the term "fastener"
as used in the instant claims can be reasonably interpreted to
cover a pair of separate male and female snaps, such as those
disclosed by Buchman. In the context of this case, such a
pair of separate snaps constitutes two fasteners, rather than
one.
Accordingly, we will not sustain rejection (1).
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