Appeal No. 1998-1349 Page 6
Application No. 08/455,859
Lastly, appellants argue that the present invention
produces a new product which results in cost saving by
reducing the diameter of the can end, and by forming the curl
outwardly and thereby thinning the material only in the curl
and not in the entire can end.
Appellants’ specification discloses that the curl is
formed during the upstroke of a punch when sloping wall 61
traps the outer edge 45 of the can end and forces the metal
from transitional outer wall 17 to stretch outward.
(Specification at page 12). It is this stretching of the
metal which causes a thinning of the metal at the curl and
thereby leads to savings of metal. However, the broad
language of claim 1, i.e., “curl is formed by moving material
outwardly between an outer edge of the cover flange and the
peripheral edge” does not mention stretching of the metal.
And in our view moving metal outwardly would not mandate that
the metal is stretched. Therefore, while the specification
may disclose a curl formed of thinned metal, when the language
of claim 1 is given its broadest reasonable interpretation, it
does not recite a curl of thinned or stretched metal.
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