Appeal No. 2003-1205
Application No. 09/568,406
both the examiner and the appellants in support of their
respective positions. This review leads us to conclude that the
examiner’s Section 102 rejection is well founded. Accordingly,
we affirm the Section 102 rejection for essentially those reasons
set forth in the Answer. We add the following primarily for
emphasis and completeness.
To establish “anticipation” under Section 102, a single
prior art reference must disclose, either expressly or under the
principles of inherency, each and every element of a claimed
invention. See In re Spada, 911 F.2d 705, 708, 15 USPQ2d 1655,
1657 (Fed. Cir. 1990); RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Sys.,
Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir.), cert.
dismissed, 468 U.S. 1228 (1984). The law of anticipation only
requires that the claims on appeal "read on" something disclosed
in the prior art reference. See Kalman v. Kimberly-Clark Corp.,
713 F.2d 760, 772, 218 USPQ 781, 789 (Fed. Cir. 1983).
We find that Komatsu teaches a fiber optic connector for
mating with a complementary device, such as a ferrule 44, along a
mating optical axis. See column 1, lines 30-45 and column 3,
lines 1-9, together with Figures 2A, 2B, and 3. We find that
Kotmatsu teaches that its optical connector has a body 11 and an
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007