Appeal No. 2003-0454 Page 6
Application No. 09/644,734
protection in evaluating the possibility of infringement and dominance. See In re
Hammack, 427 F.2d 1378, 1382, 166 USPQ 204, 208 (CCPA 1970).
In the present case, we have reviewed the appellants' disclosure to help us
determine the meaning of the above-noted terminology from claims 1, 16 and 29. That
review has revealed that the appellants' specification states: (1) at page 11 that "the
conditioning surface of the second pad conditioner 130 may be comprised of a material
that is substantially the same, or at least has the same polishing characteristics, as the
material which will be polished-off or removed from the substrate," (2) at page 12 that
"the second pad conditioner may be of a comb-like structure made of a material such
as silicon," and (3) at page 13 that "the second conditioning surface 235 may be made
of a material which is substantially identical to the one that has to be polished off the
substrate, e.g., a metal, a silicon compound, etc."
However, these portions of the disclosure do not provide explicit guidelines
defining the terminology "substantially the same" as used in claims 1, 16 and 29.
Furthermore, there are no guidelines that would be implicit to one skilled in the art
defining the term "substantially the same" as used in the terminology "wherein said
second conditioning surface is comprised of a material that is substantially the same as
the material to be polished off said substrate" that would enable one skilled in the art to
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