Appeal No. 2001-0856
Application 09/143,947
effective amount of a solvent blowing agent boiling in the range of from 40 to 60°C, and
applying heat to form and cure the composition.
The reference relied on by the examiner is:
Spek et al. (Spek) 4,833,173 May 23, 1989
The examiner has rejected appealed claims 1 through 5 and 8 through 15 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being unpatentable over Spek.1
Appellant states in the brief (page 3) that the appealed claims “stand or fall together.”
Thus, we decide this appeal based on appealed claim 1. 37 CFR § 1.192(c)(7) (2000).
We affirm.
Rather than reiterate the respective positions advanced by the examiner and appellant, we
refer to the examiner’s answer and to appellant’s brief and reply brief for a complete exposition
thereof.
Opinion
Our consideration of the examiner’s application of prior art to appealed claim 1 must, of
course, begin with interpreting the language of the claims in light of the written description in
appellant’s specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in this art. See In re
Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997) (“[T]he PTO applies
to the verbiage of the proposed 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 enlightenment by way of definitions or otherwise that may be afforded by the
written description contained in the applicant’s specification.”); In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321-
22, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (“During patent examination the pending claims
must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow. When the applicant states the
meaning that the claim terms are intended to have, the claims are examined with that meaning, in
order to achieve a complete exploration of the applicant’s invention and its relation to the prior
art. See In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1404-05, 162 USPQ 541, 550-51 (CCPA 1969) (before the
application is granted, there is no reason to read into the claim the limitations of the
1 The examiner has withdrawn the grounds of rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over Snider,
Liman and Horn (answer, page 2). See the Office action of November 11, 1999 (Paper No. 7).
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