Appeal No. 1998-2836
Application No. 08/453,211
claim 1 as being representative of the first grouping, supra,
and claims 2, 16, 17, 20, 22 and 23, will stand or fall with
claim 1, and claim 19 as being representative of the fourth
grouping, supra, and claim 21, will stand or fall with claim
19. We will also address the separate arguments made with
respect to claims 3 and 18.
Before addressing the examiner's rejection based upon
prior art, it is an essential prerequisite that the claimed
subject matter be fully understood. Analysis of whether a
claim is patentable over the prior art under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102
and 103 begins with a determination of the scope of the claim.
The properly interpreted claim must then be compared with the
prior art. Accordingly, we will initially direct our
attention to the appellants’ claim 1 to derive an
understanding of the scope and content thereof.
Independent claim 1 is directed to a bone substitute
material comprising animal bone powder. We are informed by
the appellants’ specification that “[t]he animal bone is mixed
in the form of inorganic powder” which is “obtained by firing
and pulverizing the animal bones.” Specification, p. 8.
Specifically, the appellants’ specification teaches that the
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