Appeal No. 1999-0033
Application No. 08/514,255
is claimed when the claim is read in light of the specification. See Orthokinetics Inc. v.
Safety Travel Chairs Inc., 806 F.2d 1565, 1576, 1 USPQ2d 1081, 1088 (Fed. Cir. 1986)
and cases cited therein.
In the case at bar, our first difficulty with the claim language centers on the
recitation in claims 1 and 5 that “at least one of the vane member and the casing has an
elastically deformable portion . . .” As noted supra, this limitation contemplates the
combination of the vane member and the casing because it is prefaced by the phase “at
least one of.” It is not understandable how the combination of the vane member and the
casing can be said to have an elastically deformable portion connected to one of the
elements in the combination itself, namely the aforesaid casing or, alternatively, the
aforesaid vane member.
Our next difficulty with the claim language in claims 1 and 5 centers on the
recitation that the elastically deformable portion is connected to “another one of the vane
member” (emphasis added). When read literally, this claim language is ungrammatical
and, hence, not understandable. The recitation of “another one of . . .” contemplates vane
members in the plural, not in the singular, but claims 1 and 5 refer to only one vane
member.
Our difficulty with the language in claims 9 and 12 centers on the word
“substantially.” In claim 9, the deformation of the “vane members [sic] in at least one of
an impeller axial direction and an impeller radial direction” is recited to be “substantially
unrestrained by the casing,” the elastic member is recited to be “substantially deformable
in at least one of an impeller radial direction and an impeller circumferential direction”
and the deformation of the vane member in an impeller radial direction is recited to be
12
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