Appeal No. 2001-2139
Application 09/189,643
of anticoagulant formulation exposed to the specimen
is maximized [column 5, lines 18 through 24].
Anticipation is established only when a single prior art
reference discloses, expressly or under 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).
As framed by the appellants, the dispositive issue in the
appeal is whether Carroll meets the limitation in claim 6
requiring the solvent additive dispersion to be sprayed on the
inside wall of the tube “with an air nozzle.” According to
the appellants, “the claimed spraying with an air nozzle is an
undisclosed species within [Carroll’s] disclosed genus of fine
mist spraying” (brief, page 3). The examiner, on the other
hand, submits that “the type of spraying disclosed by Carroll
inherently requires an air nozzle to produce the mist. The
mist cannot be created without an air nozzle” (answer, page
5).
Page 5 in the appellants’ specification states that “[a]
suitable air nozzle design for use in this invention is that
disclosed in US Patent No. 5,732,885 [to Huffman] after being
modified to fit into a blood collection tube.” The disclosure
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