Appeal No. 1997-2691
Application 08/496,849
OPINION
After a careful review of the evidence before us, we
agree with the Examiner that claims 1 and 3 are properly
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Thus, we will sustain the
rejection of these claims but we will reverse the rejection of
claims 2 and 4 through 7.
On page 3 of the brief, Appellants argue that Yamaka
fails to provide a tunability of wavelength sensibility during
operation. The Examiner responds on page 10 of the answer
that the claim does not require tunability of wavelength
sensibility during operation, because the claim is setting
forth a structure which is shown to have been met by the
combination of Yamaka and Pellegrini.
As pointed out by the our reviewing court, we must first
determine the scope of the claim. "[T]he name of the game is
the claim." In re Hinkiker Co., 150 F.3d 1362, 1369, 47
USPQ2d 1523, 1529 (Fed. Cir. 1998). Claims will be given
their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the
specification, and limitations appearing in the specification
are not to be read into the claims. In re Etter, 756 F.2d
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007