Appeal No. 1997-0863
Application 08/456,001
references, and the respective positions of the examiner and
appellants regarding the issues before us on appeal. As a
consequence of our review, we have made the determinations
which follow.
Turning first to the examiner's rejection of claims 1, 9
and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph, we note that
the test for determining compliance with the written
description requirement of the first paragraph of § 112 is
whether the disclosure of the application as originally filed
reasonably conveys to the artisan that the inventor had
possession at that time of the later claimed subject matter.
See In re Kaslow,707 F.2d 1366, 1375, 217 USPQ 1089, 1096
(Fed. Cir. 1983). In this regard, it is important to
additionally understand that the claimed subject matter does
not have to be expressed in ipsis verbis in the specification
in order to satisfy the description requirement of §112 (see
In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d 257, 262, 191 USPQ 90, 96 (CCPA
1976)) and that, under appropriate circumstances, the original
drawings alone may be sufficient to provide the required
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