Appeal No. 1998-1781
Application No. 08/549,828
pivotally mounted on the lower housing 13 to pivot relative to
the lower housing.
Appellant’s assertion on page 2 of the request that “[f]or
the frame member 17 to pivot relative to the panel 10 (lower
housing 13), there would have to be a pivot axis passing through
both the frame member 17 and the panel 10" is not well founded,
as there is no requirement in claim 25 that the mounting of the
fitting on the panel coincides with the mounting of the fitting
on a common horizontal axis. We remind appellant that
limitations not appearing in the claims cannot be relied upon
for patentability. In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1348, 213 USPQ 1,
5 (CCPA 1982).
As for our interpretation, on page 7 of our decision, of
the term “mounted” in the claim terminology “mounted on a common
horizontal axis” as placed on something raised, in accordance
with the definition of “mount” in Webster's New World
Dictionary, Third College Edition (Simon & Schuster, Inc. 1988),
we observe that, in proceedings before it, the PTO applies to
the verbiage of claims the broadest reasonable meaning of the
words in their ordinary usage as they would be understood by one
of ordinary skill in the art, taking into account whatever
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