Appeal No. 1997-1409
Application 08/297,399
Claims 6 and 7 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
being unpatentable over Falco in view of either Hill, Baum,
or Huntress, further in view of Knudsen,
We refer to the Final Rejection (Paper No. 6) and the
Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 15) (pages referred to as
"EA__") for a statement of the Examiner's position and to
the Revised Appeal Brief (Paper No. 12) (pages referred to
as "Br__") and the Reply Brief (Paper No. 16) (pages
referred to as "RBr__") for a statement of Appellant's
arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
Written description
We agree with Appellant's argument (RBr1) that the
original figures 2 and 3 make it clear that the area around
the rear of the stem 12 is unobstructed so that the band
means (flange) 40 can be grasped to pull the earplug out of
the ear. Thus, we find descriptive support for the
limitation in question. See Vas-Cath, Inc. v. Mahurkar,
935 F.2d 1555, 1564, 19 UPSQ2d 1111, 1117 (Fed. Cir. 1991)
("[D]rawings alone may be sufficient to provide the 'written
description of the invention' required by § 112, first
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