Appeal No. 2002-1782 Page 3
Application No. 08/709,354
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
The appellants’ invention is directed to a method of soldering component leads
to pads on the surface of a printed circuit board. Claim 1 reads as follows:
1. A method comprising:
providing a solder mound having a U-shaped lateral cross
section disposed along a surface of a printed circuit board,
the solder mound having a lateral bridge portion, and having
both first and second arm extremities extending in a
longitudinal direction away from the bridge portion along the
surface of the printed circuit board;
tapering the first and second arm extremities of the solder
mound in the longitudinal direction away from the bridge
portion along the surface of a printed circuit board, so as to
form tapered solder mound extremities and a tapered solder
mound aperture laterally therebetween;
disposing a component lead proximate to the tapered solder
mound aperture; and
registering the component lead in the tapered solder mound
aperture along the tapered solder mound extremities.
Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses, either
expressly or under the principles of inherency, each and every element of the claimed
invention. See In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480-1481, 31 USPQ2d 1671, 1675 (Fed.
Cir. 1994) and In re Spada, 911 F.2d 705, 708, 15 USPQ2d 1655, 1657 (Fed. Cir.
1990).
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