Appeal No. 200-0713
Application No. 09/494,935
of appellant’s specification, claims, and drawing, as originally
filed, reveals to us a lack of any descriptive support for the
recitation in each of independent claims 1, 4, 7, 8, 11, 14, 15,
16, 17, 34 and 37 of the feature of an end stop (means) “for
maintaining” the upward turn of the edges of a retractable
measuring tape (means); dual recitations of “for maintaining”
appear in claims 14 and 15. Further, it is apparent to us that
the claimed lock located “at least partially” on a side of a
retractable tape measure housing in each of claims 16, 26 through
30, and 32 likewise lacks descriptive support in the originally
filed disclosure, since the lock is only revealed to be entirely
on the side of the housing in Fig. 6(a).
3(...continued)
disclosure that something is possible is not a sufficient
indication to that person that the something is part of an
appellant's invention. See In re Barker, 559 F.2d 588, 591, 194
USPQ 470, 472 (CCPA 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1064 (1970).
The test for determining compliance with the written description
requirement is whether the disclosure of the application as
originally filed reasonably conveys to the artisan that the
inventor had possession at that time of the later claimed subject
matter, rather than the presence or absence of literal support in
the specification for the claim language. Further, the content of
the drawings may also be considered in determining compliance
with the written description requirement. See Vas-Cath Inc. v.
Mahurkar, 935 F.2d 1555, 1562-63, 19 USPQ2d 1111, 1116 (Fed. Cir.
1991) and In re Kaslow, 707 F.2d 1366, 1375, 217 USPQ 1089, 1096
(Fed. Cir. 1983).
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