Appeal No. 2003-1359 4
Application No. 09/285,260
In each of the independent claims on appeal, the term “attachment member”
appears in the claim in the following context: “an attachment member connected to at least
one of said spring elements, for mounting the artificial foot to a prosthesis. . . .” Based on
the way the term “attachment member” is used in the independent claims, and the fact that
the specification states that “adapter 4 allows the artificial foot to be connected to an
artificial leg” (specification, page 5), we agree with appellants’ argument (main brief, page
6) that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand the “attachment member”
terminology of appellants’ claims as referring to adapter 4 shown in the drawings figures.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph,
rejection of these claims.3
Claim interpretation
Prior to addressing the standing rejections based on prior art, it is particularly
important in this appeal to understand the meaning of certain terminology appearing in
independent claims 1 and 24.
The PTO applies to the verbiage of claims before it the broadest reasonable
meaning of the words in their ordinary usage as they would be understood by one of
ordinary skill in the art, taking into account whatever enlightenment by way of definitions or
otherwise that may be afforded by the written description contained in appellants’
3The examiner may wish to have appellants amend the specification to provide
antecedent basis therein for the claim term “attachment member” in order to bring the
specification into full compliance with 37 CFR § 1.75(d)(1).
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