Appeal No. 2003-0371 Page 4
Application No. 09/465,941
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). Anticipation by a prior art
reference does not require either the inventive concept of the claimed subject matter or
recognition of inherent properties that may be possessed by the reference. See
Verdegaal Brothers Inc. v. Union Oil Co. of California, 814 F.2d 628, 633, 2 USPQ2d
1051, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1987). Nor does it require that the reference teach what the
applicant is claiming, but only that the claim on appeal "read on" something disclosed in
the reference, i.e., all limitations of the claim are found in the reference. See Kalman v.
Kimberly-Clark Corp, 713 F.2d 760, 772, 218 USPQ 781, 789 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert.
denied, 465 U.S. 1026 (1984).
We share the examiner’s view that all of the subject matter recited in claim 1
“reads on” Woods. At the outset, in arriving at this conclusion and contrary to the
appellant’s argument, we are of the opinion that Woods is not patentably distinguished
from the claimed subject matter merely because it is not labeled as a “jig loading
system.” The fact is that the Woods assembly, as shown in Figure 5, is capable of
functioning as a device for holding stringers for subsequent loading into another fixture.
Although not described by Woods, it would appear that, in the same fashion as in the
appellant’s system, stringers are manually loaded into the releasable holders of the
Woods device, from which they are capable of being manually loaded into another such
device. The fact that Woods does not set forth the same inventive concept as the
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