Appeal No. 2002-0064
Application No. 09/084,042
depends for completeness on the preamble recitation “regenerator”
such that, in this instance, the term “regenerator” is a
limitation on claim 1 and not merely a statement of purpose or
use. In other words, the limitations found in the body of the
claim are not the only limitations of the claim, and the term
“regenerator” in the preamble of claim 1 itself further limits
the scope of claim 1 such that every heat exchange device that
literally meets the terms of the body of the claim does not
necessarily anticipate the claim. To read the claim in light of
the specification indiscriminately to cover all types of heat
exchangers would be divorced from reality.3
Looking at Pauletta, the alleged anticipatory reference, in
more detail, this patent pertains to a concentric tube odor
eliminator wherein waste gas having noxious constituents is
heated to an elevated temperature to oxidize or otherwise
transform the noxious constituents to a benign state (column 1,
3It is, of course, well settled that in proceedings before
the PTO claims must be given their broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the specification, and that the
claim language cannot be read in a vacuum, but instead must be
read in light of the specification as it would be interpreted by
one of ordinary skill in the pertinent art. See, for example, In
re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 833, 15 USPQ2d 1566, 1567 (Fed. Cir.
1990), Specialty Composites v. Cabot Corp., 845 F.2d 981, 986,
6 USPQ2d 1601, 1604 (Fed. Cir. 1988) and In re Sneed, 710 F.2d
1544, 1548, 218 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1983).
5
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