Appeal No. 2000-0182 Page 8
Application No. 08/831,327
must . . . 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." Vas-Cath, Inc. v. Mahurkar, 935
F.2d 1555, 1563-64, 19 USPQ2d 1111, 1117 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
Finally, "[p]recisely how close the original description must
come to comply with the description requirement of section 112
must be determined on a case-by-case basis." Eiselstein v.
Frank, 52 F.3d 1035, 1039, 34 USPQ2d 1467, 1470 (Fed. Cir. 1995)
(quoting Vas-Cath, 935 F.2d at 1561, 19 USPQ2d at 1116).
In our view the following limitation of claim 1 lacks
written description support in the original disclosure:
wherein said leading end grasping portions formed at the
leading ends of said at least four elastic grasping members
different in length are spread in a spiral arrangement at
the time of spreading of said elastic grasping section so
that said leading end grasping portions are arranged at
different distances from the center axis of the insertion
section, the distances of said leading end grasping portions
from the center axis of the insertion section increasing
substantially monotonically.
Specifically, the recitation that "said leading end grasping
portions are arranged at different distances from the center axis
of the insertion section" and the recitation that "the distances
of said leading end grasping portions from the center axis of the
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