Appeal No. 1999-0644 Page 6
Application No. 08/459,460
1238 (1978). With respect to the description requirement, the court in Vas-Cath, Inc. v.
Mahurkar 935 F.2d at 1563-64, 19 USPQ2d at 1117 stated:
35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, requires a "written description of the
invention" which is separate and distinct from the enablement requirement. The
purpose of the "written description" requirement is broader than to merely
explain how to "make and use"; the applicant must also convey with reasonable
clarity to those skilled in the art that, as of the filing date sought, he or she was
in possession of the invention. The invention is, for purposes of the "written
description" inquiry, whatever is now claimed.
With these authorities in mind, we have carefully reviewed the original disclosure and,
like the examiner, fail to find descriptive support for the seal runner surface being "shaped to
provide radial convergence of said seal gap," as is encompassed by the language of claim 5 as
now amended, or "formed to converge toward [the sealing face surface]," as encompassed by
the language of claim 12 as now amended. Specifically, the appellant's specification indicates,4
in the embodiment of Figures 1A and 1B, that the convergence of the seal gap (21) is achieved
by a step (42), in the ring sealing surface (26), extending toward the runner surface (20) to
form a sealing dam (page 6, lines 11-15) and that the seal ring (24) is formed with a geometry
such that a converging flow path is provided either as a step, a taper in the direction of the fluid
flow to narrow the gap, or a combination of a step and a taper (page 10, lines 10-14). Further,
we note that original independent claim 1 recited, in lines 16-17, "said sealing face being
formed to converge toward said runner surface" (emphasis added) and that original claim 5, the
4The language "at least one of [said surfaces]" is sufficiently broad to encompass either the seal ring
surface or the seal runner surface being shaped to converge.
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