Appeal No. 2002-0027
Application No. 08/963,812
membrane is bent or curved in the form of a bow (answer, page 4).
With this understanding, the examiner has concluded that one of
ordinary skill in the art would thus have viewed Wood’s curved,
dome-shaped membrane as being an “arcuate membrane.”
Appellant contends in the brief and reply brief that he has,
in his specification, clearly defined the “arcuate membrane” of
his invention so as to preclude it from covering dome-shaped
membranes. However, we find no such “clear” definition in
appellant’s specification of exactly what constitutes an “arcuate
membrane.” Rather, we find examples of what are apparently
appellant’s preferred embodiments of the invention, i.e., wherein
the arcuate membrane is “typically an elongated arched membrane”
(page 4, lines 7-8), or “may be configured to resemble a
longitudinal segment of a conduit” (page 4, lines 19-20).
Particularly telling in interpreting appellant’s “arcuate
membrane” language of claim 18 is the paragraph at the top of
page 5 of the specification wherein appellant indicates that
“[i]n one embodiment of the tapping connector, a
membrane may be defined by opposing surfaces
comprising an outer convex surface and an inner concave
surface, wherein these outer and inner surfaces are
each characterized by a radius of curvature. The
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