Appeal No. 2000-2175 Page 9
Application No. 09/268,925
terms used in body of claim); Corning Glass Works, 868 F.2d at
1257, 9 USPQ2d at 1966 (considering the specification's
statement of the problem with the prior art); Kropa, 187 F.2d
at 152, 88 USPQ at 481 (noting that preamble sets out distinct
relationship among remaining claim elements).
Inspection of the entire record in this case reveals that
"HVAC plastic duct connector" is, in fact, a structural
limitation of claims 1 and 7. To begin with, the term "HVAC"
was added to the preamble of claims 1 and 7 in the amendment
filed on September 14, 1999 (Paper No. 4) to distinguish those
claims from the applied prior art. Additionally, the
appellant's specification clearly indicates that the inventor
was working on a particular problem concerning HVAC duct
connectors used in heating, ventilation and air conditioning
systems (i.e., systems that use a network of ducts to deliver
the heated and/or cooled air to various rooms and spaces within
a building structure) and not general improvements to all
ducts. In our opinion, to read claims 1 and 7 indiscriminately
to cover all types of ducts would be divorced from reality.
The invention so described is restricted to those HVAC plastic
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