Appeal No. 2000-0068
Application 08/858,116
section of the shaping mold to attract the heated sheet of glass
to the shaping mold and to shape a first area of the sheet
corresponding to the shape of the first shaping surface.
Subsequently a vacuum is generated in the second section of the
shaping mold to attract a second area of the heated sheet of
glass complementary to the first area of the heated sheet of
glass against the second section of the shaping mold to shape the
second area of the heated sheet of glass corresponding to the
shape of the second shaping surface. In the fourth step of the
claimed method the shaped heated sheet of glass is released from
the shaping molds onto a quenching ring and moved on the
quenching ring to a quenching station.
Appellants claim a process "comprising" four positively
recited manipulative steps. The term "comprising" is recognized
as an open-ended claim term. That is, as a "comprising" claim,
Claim 10 does not exclude any other steps disclosed in the prior
art, including both those disclosed but not claimed by appellants
and those neither disclosed nor contemplated by appellants. In re
Baxter, 656 F.2d 679, 686, 210 USPQ 795, 802 (CCPA 1981).
According to page 5 of appellants' brief, the examiner's
stated rejection is not sustainable because Seymour, the primary
reference, and both McMaster and Kuster, the secondary
references, are directed to processes so different from the
claimed process that they would not have suggested to a person of
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