Appeal No. 1998-1714
Application No. 08/441,823
(B) Claims 7 and 9 to 12 are rejected as being unpatentable for
failure to comply with the written description requirement of 35
U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph. The method recited in these
claims is directed to the embodiment described on page 7, lines 3
to 19 of the specification. Claim 7 recites "adding an invisible
detection agent to a handwashing medium," and while this step is
not described on page 7, the Abstract of the Disclosure does
state in its last sentence that the fluorescent additive is "in a
handwashing medium." However, we find no disclosure in the
application as filed of the second step of claim 7, "applying the
invisible detection agent to a person’s body part by washing the
body part with said handwashing medium " (emphasis added); all the
specification states is that the detection agent "may be applied
to one’s body parts" (page 7, line 7). Moreover, in addition to
the lack of any disclosure of the underlined claim language, one
of ordinary skill would not be apprised by the specification that
appellant was in possession thereof because washing a body part
with the handwashing medium would be contrary to the purpose of
the claimed method, in that it would tend to remove the detection
agent from the body part, instead of leaving the detection agent
on the body part so that it would be deposited on surface areas
of the defined space when contacted by the body part (as recited
11
Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007