Appeal No. 1999-1744
Application No. 08/743,521
there remains the requirement of the claims that the forked
end and the J-shaped portion “are contained in a common
plane.” While we acknowledge that a plane perpendicular to
the plan view of Figure 2 can be drawn through the plunger 12
of Cripps that contains portions of the hook 17 and tip 18, we
do not think this circumstance can be parlayed into a fair
reading of appellant’s claim language onto the structure of
Cripps. In this regard, notwithstanding where any such
perpendicular plane is located, only certain portions of hook
17 and tip 18 of Cripps would lie therein, with major parts of
hook 17 and tip 18 lying completely beyond any such plane. In
the present instance, we think appellant’s characterization of
Cripps’ hook 17 and tip 18 as being contained in parallel
planes (see, for example, the Figure 1 view of these elements)
as opposed to being within a common plane, is a fairer and
more accurate way of describing the relationship of elements
17 and 18 of the reference.
While it is true that the claims in a patent application
are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation
consistent with the specification during prosecution of a
patent application (see, for example, In re Zletz, 893 F.2d
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