Appeal No. 1998-2144
Application No. 08/568,847
Reply Brief (Paper No. 16) for appellants’ position with respect to the claims which stand
rejected.
OPINION
At the outset we note that each of the three independent claims before us (21, 31,
and 36) are drafted in the well-known Jepson format. We interpret each respective claim
as setting forth elements which are conventional or known in the portion preceding “the
improvement comprising,” with the conventional or known elements forming part of the
combination. See, e.g., Rowe v. Dror, 112 F.3d 473, 478, 42 USPQ2d 1550, 1553 (Fed.
Cir. 1997). The prior-art elements set forth in the respective claims are found in module 10
(Figure 1), as described in the “Background of the Invention” section of the instant
specification.
We also note an ambiguity in at least claims 21 and 36. The original disclosure
(including the original claims) does not refer to a “contact means.” The term “contact
means” appeared when the original claims were canceled and present claims 21 through
35 were added by the amendment filed November 15, 1996 (Paper No. 6). In the
Remarks accompanying the amendment, appellants’ only apparent reference to what may
correspond to the claimed “contact means” appears on page 5, referring to Figure 3:
“These columnar connections can extend all the way from a C4 contact 70 to a connection
66b [sic] on the interior surface of the base of the module for direct cooling of the C4
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