Appeal No. 1997-3528
Application No. 08/230,659
In order for a claim to satisfy the written description
requirement, the original application must reasonably convey
to those skilled in the relevant art that the applicants, as
of the filing date of the application, had possession of the
claimed invention. In re Alton, 76 F.3d 1168, 1172, 37 USPQ2d
1578, 1581 (Fed. Cir. 1996); In re Kaslow, 707 F.2d 1366,
1375, 217 USPQ 1089, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 1983)). However, the
written description requirement does not require the
applicants to describe exactly the subject matter claimed in
the original application. Instead, the description must
clearly allow persons of ordinary skill in the art to
recognize that the applicants invented what is claimed. In re
Gosteli, 872 F.2d 1008, 1012, 10 USPQ2d 1614, 1618 (Fed. Cir.
1989).
As pointed out by the appellants on page 6 of their
principal brief, the specification provides the following
description:
The exposure of the polymeric article to
electromagnetic radiation prior to forming the index
grating in the article surprisingly results in
substantially increasing the diffraction efficiency
of the optical article and also decreasing the decay
rate of the diffraction efficiency of the optical
article. [Emphasis added; p. 14, ll. 4-7.]
6
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