Appeal No. 1999-1758
Application No. 08/787,971
careful consideration to the appellant’s specification and
claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the
examiner.
We turn first to the examiner’s rejection of appealed
claims 1-8 and 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph,
which rejection we understand to be based upon the written
description requirement of the first paragraph of § 112. In
general, the test for determining compliance with the written
description requirement of § 112, first paragraph, is whether
the disclosure of the application as originally filed
reasonably conveys to the artisan that the inventor had
possession at that time of the later claimed subject matter,
rather than the presence or absence of literal support in the
specification for the claim language under consideration.
Further, it is also well settled that the content of the
drawings may be considered in determining compliance with the
written description requirement. See Wang Laboratories Inc.
v. Toshiba Corp., 993 F.2d 858, 865, 26 USPQ2d 1767, 1774
(Fed. Cir. 1993); Vas-Cath Inc. v. Mahurkar, 935 F.2d 1555,
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