Appeal No. 2000-0855
Application No. 08/597,377
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the
examiner. As a consequence of our review, we have made the
determinations which follow.
Rejection (1)
Initially we note that anticipation by a prior art
reference does not require either the inventive concept of the
claimed
subject matter or the recognition of inherent properties that
may be possessed by the prior art reference. See Verdegaal
Bros. Inc. v. Union Oil Co., 814 F.2d 628, 633, 2 USPQ2d 1051,
1054 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 827 (1987). 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
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