Appeal No. 1999-2075
Application No. 08/482,944
We consider first the Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) rejection
of claims 1 as being anticipated by Fellous. Anticipation is
established only when a single prior art reference discloses,
expressly or under the principles of inherency, each and every
element of a claimed invention as well as disclosing structure
which is capable of performing the recited functional limitations.
RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Systems, Inc., 730 F.2d 1440,
1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir.); cert. dismissed, 468 U.S. 1228
(1984); W.L. Gore and Associates, Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d
1540, 1554, 220 USPQ 303, 313 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469
U.S. 851 (1984).
With respect to independent claim 1, the Examiner indicates
(Answer, page 3) how the various limitations are read on the
disclosure of Fellous. In particular, the Examiner points to the
illustration of the imaging system in Figure 1 of Fellous with the
accompanying description beginning at column 5, line 1, as well as
the depiction of the sensor arrangement in Figure 2 of the
drawings.
Appellants’ arguments in response assert a failure of Fellous
to disclose every limitation in claim 1 as is required to support a
rejection based on anticipation. At pages 4 and 5 of the Brief,
Appellants’ arguments focus on the contention that, contrary to the
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