Appeal No. 1999-1785
Application No. 08/512,656
contain a groove for a seal as required by the Totten
reference and Totten accordingly does not anticipate
applicant’s invention claimed in twice-amended Claim 11”
(brief, page 6). We do not agree. A prior art reference
anticipates the subject of a claim when the reference
discloses every feature of the claimed invention, either
explicitly or inherently (see Hazani v. Int'l Trade Comm'n,
126 F.3d 1473, 1477, 44 USPQ2d 1358, 1361 (Fed. Cir. 1997) and
RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Systems, Inc., 730 F.2d
1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984)); however, the
law of anticipation does not require that the reference teach
what the appellants are claiming, but only that the claims on
appeal "read on" something disclosed in the reference (see
Kalman v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 713 F.2d 760, 772, 218 USPQ
781, 789 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 465 U.S. 1026
(1984)). Appellant’s claim 11 on appeal merely requires that
the external member and the internal member form a “seat” for
the at least one seal member. We observe that appellant’s
groove 59 in external member 52" (Figure 6C) defines, at least
in part, a recess or “seat” for seal member 54. Similarly,
Totten shows grooves 166, 168 which at least in part define
7
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