Appeal No. 2001-1418
Application 08/022,822
generally parallel sides to create a waffle like grid
pattern with rectangular or diamond shaped sealed
portions between the passages. In the enlarged section
of FIG. 4, the passages are indicated as 20 and 21 that
intersect at 23. A rectangular sealed section 24 seals
the two thermoplastic panels of the pad together.
. . .
The waffle grid pattern allows the circulating
liquid to flow in several different directions. Thus,
if a crease in the folded pad should block off one
particular passage, such as 20, liquid can detour
around crimped passage 20 and still flow through the
serpentine series connected fields. Thus, the
partitioning system between the fields provide[s] major
directional guidance for the liquid, while the waffle
grid pattern within each field provides a random
circulation within the field as liquid flows from an
inlet of the field to an outlet of the field [column 2,
lines 25 through 65].
Anticipation is established only when a single prior art
reference discloses, expressly or under principles of inherency,
each and every element of a claimed invention. RCA Corp. v.
Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ
385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984). In other words, there must be no
difference between the claimed invention and the reference
disclosure, as viewed by a person of ordinary skill in the field
of the invention. Scripps Clinic & Research Found. v. Genentech
Inc., 927 F.2d 1565, 1576, 18 USPQ2d 1001, 1010 (Fed. Cir. 1991).
It is not necessary that the reference teach what the subject
application teaches, but only that the claim read on something
disclosed in the reference, i.e., that all of the limitations in
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