Appeal No. 2001-2612 Page 4
Application No. 09/479,741
vacuum, but always in light of the teachings of the prior art and of the particular
application disclosure as it would be interpreted by one possessing the ordinary level of
skill in the pertinent art. Id.
The first 7 pages of the appellant’s specification inform the reader that insofar
as the invention is concerned each of the emotions experienced by individuals from
time to time manifests itself in different facial expressions indicating the intensity of an
emotion, such as subdued, normal and exaggerated. It is our view that one of ordinary
skill in the art would have understood, especially from the explanations on pages 3 and
7 of the specification, that the phrase in issue indicates that each set of plural faces
defines the three such levels of intensity of a single emotion. Therefore, from our
perspective, the examiner’s position that the meaning of the disputed phrase is unclear
is not well taken
The rejection of claims 1-20 and 22 under Section 112 is not sustained.
The Rejection Under Section 102
Claims 1-6 and 8 stand rejected as being anticipated1 by Frank. It is our view
that Frank fails to disclose or teach the requirement in independent claims 1 and 3 that
1Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses, either expressly or
under the principles of inherency, each and every element of the claimed invention. See, for example, In
re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480-1481, 31 USPQ2d 1671, 1675 (Fed. Cir. 1994) and In re Spada, 911 F.2d
705, 708, 15 USPQ2d 1655, 1657 (Fed. Cir. 1990).
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