Appeal No. 2002-1019
Application 09/433,570
against the golfer’s right (forward) armpit.2 As for the
recitation in claim 16 requiring the anchor to be “planar,” the
original drawing figures show the anchor 26 to be “planar” in the
sense that it lies essentially in a single plane. Thus, the
originally filed disclosure in the instant application would
reasonably convey to the artisan that the appellants had
possession at that time of the subject matter now set forth in
independent claims 1, 9 and 16, and dependent claims 2 through 8,
10 through 15 and 17 through 24.
Insofar as the enablement requirement is concerned, the
dispositive issue is whether the appellants’ disclosure,
considering the level of ordinary skill in the art as of the date
of the application, would have enabled a person of such skill to
make and use the claimed invention without undue experimentation.
In re Strahilevitz, 668 F.2d 1229, 1232, 212 USPQ 561, 563-64
(CCPA 1982). In calling into question the enablement of the
2 Considered as a whole, the appellants’ specification
indicates that putting aids/brace members designed for right and
left handed golfers, respectively, are mirror images of one
another. Thus, the limitations at issue in claims 1, 9 and 16
merely define the respective anchor-armpit relationships embodied
by right and left handed putting aids/brace members, and do not
call for a putting aid/brace member which can be used by both
right and left handed golfers.
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