Appeal No. 2002-1471 Page 7
Application No. 09/141,183
882, 8 USPQ2d 1468, 1472 (Fed. Cir. 1988). Accordingly, we will
initially direct our attention to appellants' claim 1 to derive
an understanding of the scope and content thereof.
What we are dealing with in this case is the construction of
the term "adapted to" recited in appealed claim 1. As stated by
the court in In re Hiniker Co., 150 F.3d 1362, 1369, 47 USPQ2d
1523, 1529 (Fed. Cir. 1998) "[t]he name of the game is the
claim."
We find that the claim language "adapted to" is a functional
limitation, which is an attempt to define something by what it
does, rather than by what it is. There is nothing inherently
wrong with defining some part of an invention in functional
terms. A functional limitation must be evaluated and considered
just like any other limitation of the claim, for what it fairly
conveys to a person of ordinary skill in the pertinent art in the
context in which it is used. See In re Venezia, 530 F.2d 956,
189 USPQ 149 (CCPA 1976) where it was held that limitations such
as "members adapted to be positioned" serve to precisely define
present structural attributes of interrelated component parts of
the claimed assembly; see MPEP §2173.05(g) Eight Edition, Rev. 1,
February 2003. In our view, the language "adapted to" is a broad
recitation of structure, that cannot be ignored. While it is not
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