Appeal No. 1998-0023
Application 08/470,374
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
"written description of the invention." See Vas-Cath Inc. v.
Mahurkar, 935 F.2d 1555, 1563, 19 USPQ2d 1111, 1117 (Fed. Cir.
1991); In re Wolfensperger, 302 F.2d 950, 956, 133 USPQ 537,
542 (CCPA 1962).
With this as our background, we turn to the examiner's
characterization of the recitation in claims on appeal
regarding the cross-sectional flow area of the first and
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