Appeal No. 2001-0436
Application No. 09/040,361
define the claimed subject matter in the technical sense. See In
re Knowlton, 481 F.2d 1357, 1366, 178 USPQ 486, 492 (CCPA 1973).
While the claim language may appear, for the most part, to be
understandable when read in the abstract, no claim may be read
apart from and independent of the supporting disclosure on which
it is based. In re Cohn, 438 F.2d 989, 993, 169 USPQ 95, 98
(CCPA 1971); In re Moore, 439 F.2d 1232, 1235 n.2, 169 USPQ 236,
238 n.2 (CCPA 1971). Applying these principles to the present
case, we have encountered considerable difficulty understanding
the meaning of several terms appearing in the appealed claims.
Our first difficulty concerns appellants’ use of the word
“under” in the last paragraph of claim 1, as in “said engine
assembly comprises an engine unit and a transmission unit which
is disposed under said engine unit” (emphasis added). While the
quoted claim language may appear to be clear when read in a
vacuum, this claim language, when read in light of the supporting
specification, and especially the drawing figures, raises an
unreasonable degree of uncertainty as to what the word “under”
may mean. In this regard, Webster’s Dictionary2 indicates that
2I.e., Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary, the
Riverside Publishing Company, copyright © 1984 by Houghton
Mifflin Company.
3
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007