Appeal No. 2002-0313
Application No. 09/302,106
52 F.3d 967, 980, 34 USPQ2d 1321, 1330 (Fed. Cir.) (in banc),
aff’d, 116 S. Ct. 1384 (1996).
Appellants’ claim 1 requires that “an assembly including a
disk for mounting said peripheral device” be connected to a host
computer wherein “a shock absorbing material being positioned
directly between said host computer and said assembly” absorbs
shock to the assembly and the disk. Our review of the
specification reveals no definition for the term “directly” that
compels us to find the Examiner’s position to be unreasonable.
In fact, Appellants have depicted their claimed invention in
Figure 3 by merely showing printed circuit board 314 serving as a
base for the disk-head assembly 316 without showing a “host
computer” (specification, page 6, lines 9-10). The only
reference Appellants’ have made to a “host computer,” is provided
in the description of printed circuit board 314 which is further
shown to include connector 300 positioned in a downward direction
“for connection to the host computer” (specification, page 6,
lines 10-12).
Additionally, the only other elements that are apparently
connected to the printed circuit board, are shown in Figure 3 as
elements 310 and 312, but are not described in the specification.
However, housing bracket 110 and connectors 112 in Figure 1 which
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007