Appeal No. 2003-0746 Application No. 09/898,437 decision, appellant’s specification attaches no criticality to the choice of flocculating materials. Chung evidences that the claimed materials were known in the art as flocculating agents. Appellant also submits that we overlooked the claims in concluding that the claims do not preclude the addition of aluminum-containing chemicals. According to appellant, the recitation of the Markush group effectively confines the metal ions to zinc and manganese ions. However, the “comprising” language of the claims “opens” the claims to the addition of compounds in addition to the recited zinc and manganese ions. As for appellant’s statement that “claims are interpreted from the specification and prosecution estoppel applies” (page 3 of request, penultimate paragraph), it is well settled that limitations from the specification are not to be read into the claims. In re Etter, 756 F.2d 852, 225 USPQ 1 (Fed. Cir.), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 828 (1985). Appellant also contends that “[c]ontrary to the Board’s statement, Chung does not disclose bentonite and a polyacrylamide” (page 4 of request, 2nd paragraph). We addressed this argument at the sentence bridging pages 6 and 7 of the decision. We recognized that Chung does not expressly disclose a -3-Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007