Appeal No. 1998-1711 Page 5
Application No. 08/506,387
USPQ2d 1754, 1759 (Fed. Cir. 1994). Moreover, in order to satisfy the second paragraph of
35 U.S.C. § 112, a claim must accurately define the invention in the technical sense. See In re
Knowlton, 481 F.2d 1357, 1366, 178 USPQ 486, 492-93 (CCPA 1973).
The appellants' disclosure describes several different embodiments of the invention, each
of which comprises modules 20 carrying the windshield wipers and a second module 32, which
includes a windshield washer liquid reservoir module 18 and at least one other liquid holding
compartment or reservoir. The second module 32 may, in fact, take the form of either a single
reservoir divided into compartments, as shown in Figure 2, for example, or several small
reservoirs juxtaposed together, as illustrated in Figures 5-7 (specification, page 7, lines 12-16).
As a "module" is defined as any of a set of units designed to be arranged or joined in a variety
of ways and as a "reservoir" is a receptacle for holding a fluid, we understand the disclosed4
invention to include modules carrying the windshield wipers and several liquid containing
reservoirs, which reservoirs may take the form of a single compartmented module juxtaposed
with the windshield wiper modules or a plurality of distinct modules which are juxtaposed with
each other and the windshield wiper modules.
Each of the independent claims 1 and 7 requires a plurality of modules, one of which
constitutes or serves as a windshield washing liquid reservoir (i.e., a reservoir capable of
holding windshield washing liquid) and another of which carries windshield wiping means. As
4Webster's New World Dictionary, Third College Edition (Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1988).
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