Appeal No. 2002-1898
Application 09/567,392
Anticipation is established only when a single prior art
reference discloses, expressly or under principles of inherency,
each and every element of a claimed invention. RCA Corp. v.
Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ
385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984). It is not necessary that the
reference teach what the subject application teaches, but only
that the claim read on something disclosed in the reference,
i.e., that all of the limitations in the claim be found in or
fully met by the reference. Kalman v. Kimberly Clark Corp., 713
F.2d 760, 772, 218 USPQ 781, 789 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied,
465 U.S. 1026 (1984).
In applying Thatcher against claim 6 (see page 3 in the
answer), the examiner reads the claim limitations pertaining to
the front shoulder straps and the transverse load carrying strap
on Thatcher’s shoulder straps 30 and sternum strap 34,
respectively. Claim 6 also requires of the recited back pack
that “the entire load of the back pack is located over the
thoracic spinal column of the user.”1 The examiner has not
explained, however, nor is it apparent, how this last limitation
1 There is nothing intrinsically wrong with using such
functional language in a claim to define something by what it
does rather than by what it is. In re Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210,
213, 169 USPQ 226, 228 (CCPA 1971).
4
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