Appeal No. 1999-1066
Application No. 08/756,440
crosslinking-reaction with another silane’ in claims 21-24 is not
supported by the [original written description of the
appellants’] specification” (supplemental examiner’s answer,
mailed September 10, 2002, page 5).
The test for determining compliance with the written
description requirement is whether the disclosure of the
application as originally filed reasonably conveys to the artisan
that the inventor had possession at that time of the later
claimed subject matter, rather than the presence or absence of
literal support in the specification for the claim language. In
re Kaslow, 707 F.2d 1366, 1375, 217 USPQ 1089, 1096 (Fed. Cir.
1983).
Our application of this test to the circumstances here under
consideration leads us to agree with the appellants that the
original specification disclosure (e.g., see especially the
disclosure referred to by the appellants in their briefs which
appears on specification pages 17-18 and 28-29) would reasonably
convey to an artisan that the appellants had possession on their
application filing date of the claimed subject matter in
question. In her response to the appellants’ argument regarding
this rejection, the examiner makes the following unembellished
statement: “Applicant [sic] argues that support can be found on
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