Appeal No. 1998-1319
Application No. 08/466,188
thereof. See In re Donaldson Co., 16 F.3d 1189, 1193, 29
USPQ2d 1845, 1849 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
In the present case, the only disclosed structure for
each of the claimed means is that which is presently claimed.
In particular, the disclosed Y direction driving means and A-D
converter means are a Y direction driving circuit and an A-D
converter circuit, the voltage generating means is a voltage
generating circuit, upon which a generator reads, the selector
means is a selector circuit, and the X direction driving means
is an X direction driving circuit which includes the selector
circuit. In re Lonardo, 119 F.3d 960, 967, 43 USPQ2d 1262,
1267 (Fed. Cir. 1997), cert. denied, 118 S. Ct. 1164 (1998)
had a similar situation. The patent claim recited a means for
securing, and the rejected claim recited a particular
structure for securing. The only disclosed structure for
implementing the securing function was the structure recited
in the rejected claim. The court thus determined that the
claimed means must be interpreted in the manner that is
expressly recited in rejected claim, and that the rejected
claim was therefore unpatentable over the patent claim on the
ground of obviousness-type double patenting. Accordingly,
17
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