Ex parte LEAHY et al. - Page 6




          Appeal No. 1999-0936                                                        
          Application No. 08/890,263                                                  


          this regard, while it is true that the terms “first” and                    
          “second” in reissue claim 3 are broader than the terms “upper”              
          and “lower” used in patent claim 3, this circumstance alone is              
          not sufficient to warrant a conclusion that reissue claim 3                 
          lacks descriptive support.  See In re Rasmussen, 650 F.2d                   
          1212, 1214, 211 USPQ 323, 326 (CCPA 1981)(an applicant is not               
          limited to claiming only the specific embodiment described in               
          the specification, but may instead claim his invention as                   
          broad as the prior art and his disclosure will allow).  In the              
          present instance, there is                                                  





          nothing in the patent disclosure when read in its entirety                  
          that would lead one of ordinary skill in the art to conclude                
          that the inventive method necessarily depends on positioning                
          the suction cups such that they are oriented in upper and                   
          lower positions.  In fact, certain passages in the patent                   
          specification that describe the invention in more general                   
          terms suggest just the opposite, i.e., that orienting the                   


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