Appeal No. 2002-1911 Page 4
Application No. 09/598,087
A claim is anticipated only if each and every element as set forth in the claim is
found, either expressly or inherently described, in a single prior art reference.
Verdegaal Bros. Inc. v. Union Oil Co., 814 F.2d 628, 631, 2 USPQ2d 1051, 1053 (Fed.
Cir.), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 827 (1987). The inquiry as to whether a reference
anticipates a claim must focus on what subject matter is encompassed by the claim and
what subject matter is described by the reference. As set forth by the court in Kalman
v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., 713 F.2d 760, 772, 218 USPQ 781, 789 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert.
denied, 465 U.S. 1026 (1984), it is only necessary for the claims to "'read on' something
disclosed in the reference, i.e., all limitations of the claim are found in the reference, or
'fully met' by it." While all elements of the claimed invention must appear in a single
reference, additional references may be used to interpret the anticipating reference and
to shed light on its meaning, particularly to those skilled in the art at the relevant time.
See Studiengesellschaft Kohle v. Dart Indus., Inc., 726 F.2d 724, 726-727, 220 USPQ
841, 842-843 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
Verma teaches in the abstract that (1) an existing vehicle seat design is
equipped with strain gauges welded to structural seat members to sense occupant
seated weight; (2) a microprocessor compensates for preload on the sensors and
multiplies each signal by an empirically determined gain, and then combines the gauge
outputs; (3) the combined output is low pass filtered to avoid motion induced errors; and
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