Appeal No. 2002-1240
Application 09/247,550
Appellants respond by stating that the only disclosure of
Iida with respect to the disc-shroud gap range is found in figure
6 of Iida. See page 2 of the reply brief. Appellants point out
that Iida stops the curve shown in figure 6 at a value of a gap
of about 1.5 mm. See page 3 of the reply brief. Appellants
argue that taking the teachings of Iida as a whole, Iida only
teaches that the disc-shroud gap should be 3 mm or somewhat below
3 mm, possible up to about 1.5 mm. See page 4 of the reply
brief. Thus, Appellants argue that Iida does not teach an
overlapping range.
“It is also an elementary principle of patent law that when,
as by a recitation of ranges or otherwise, a claim covers several
compositions, the claim is ‘anticipated’ if one of them is in the
prior art.” Titanium Metals Corp. of Am. v. Banner, 778 F.2d
775, 782, 227 USPQ 773, 779 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (citing In re
Petering, 301 F.2d 676, 682, 133 USPQ 275, 280 (CCPA 1962).
Upon our careful review of Iida, we find that Iida does not
teach an overlapping range of the claimed disc-shroud gap of
greater than 0.1 mm but not greater than 0.6 mm. We note that
Iida’s figure 6 does not contemplate a gap size less than 2 mm
since the curve ends approximately at that point. Furthermore,
6
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