Appeal No. 2000-0583
Application No. 08/955,984
storing the extruded tube in a humid environment prior to
expanding).
For the foregoing reasons, we shall sustain the
examiner’s rejection of claim 1, as well as claim 5 which
appellants have grouped therewith (brief, page 4), as being
anticipated by Levy.10
Claims 2-4
Claims 2-4 depend from claim 1 and include further
recitations with regard to the moisture content to which the
tube is dried prior to the expansion step. Levy does not
specify the moisture content of the tubing at the time of the
expansion step. Claims 2-4 do not, however, preclude a step
of storing the extruded and dried tube in a humid environment
prior to the expansion step and, as such, do not dictate the
moisture content of the tube at the time it is expanded.
Thus, even assuming that the moisture content of the tube at
the time it is expanded affects the characteristics of the
final product under the operating conditions (e.g., starting
10Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference
discloses, expressly or under the principles of inherency, each and every
element of a claimed invention. RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc.,
730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
15
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