Appeal No. 2000-1635
Application 08/987,236
for claim 12) in the appendix of appellants’ brief.1
The reference applied in the final rejection is:
Patzelt et al. (Patzelt) 5,778,732 Jul.
14, 1998
(filed Jun. 24,
1996)
Claims 1 and 7 to 18 stand finally rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 102(e) as anticipated by Patzelt.
“To anticipate a claim, a prior art reference must
disclose every limitation of the claimed invention, either
explicitly or inherently.” In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473,
1477, 44 USPQ2d 1429, 1431 (Fed. Cir. 1997). In the present
case, the examiner specifies on pages 3 and 4 of the answer
how he considers claims 1 and 7 to 18 to be readable on
Patzelt. However, the examiner does not address the
limitation, found in both independent claims 1 and 12, that
the displacement control means applies a pressing force to the
vehicle pedal “at a position between the rotation shaft and
the tread of the vehicle pedal.” Even assuming that the
1 In reviewing the claims, it appears that --and-- should
be inserted between “pivot” and “is supported” in line 6 of
claim 1.
2
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