Appeal No. 2003-0106
Application 09/502,680
the blade by “angularly adjusting the height of the holder
incrementally and thereby the height of the at least one plate
incrementally.”
Before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, when evaluating
claim language during examination of an application, the examiner
is required to give the terminology of a claim its broadest
reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification, and
to remember that the claim language cannot be read in a vacuum,
but instead must be read in light of the specification as it
would have been interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the
pertinent art. See In re Sneed, 710 F.2d 1544, 1548, 218 USPQ
385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1983); In re Bond, 910 F.2d 831, 833, 15
USPQ2d 1566, 1567 (Fed. Cir. 1990) and In re Morris, 127 F.3d
1048, 1054, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997).
Thus, while it is true that appellants have not used the
language “angularly adjusting the height of the holder
incrementally” in the specification or provided a specific
definition of the term “incrementally,” it is important that we
understand from appellants’ disclosure exactly what appellants
mean by such recitations and that we give such terminology of the
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