Appeal No. 2003-0539
Application No. 09/188,702
(see In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900, 902, 221 USPQ 1125, 1127 (Fed.
Cir. 1984)). Glickman contains no such suggestion.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the examiner’s rejection of
claims 6-12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over
Glickman.
New Ground of Rejection
Pursuant to our authority under 37 CFR § 1.196(b), we enter
the following new ground of rejection.
Claims 6, 7 and 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
being anticipated by the Figure 25 connector element of Glickman.
Notwithstanding that we have not sustained the examiner’s
rejection of the appealed claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Glickman’s Figure 25 connector element on an
obviousness rationale, we consider the Figure 25 connector element
to be highly relevant prior art with respect to appellants’ claimed
invention. As we see it, the issue is whether the holes or
openings in the Figure 25 connector of Glickman comprise
“substantially triangularly shaped” holes having “internal angular
corners” as called for in claim 1.
In proceedings before it, the PTO applies to the verbiage of
claims the broadest reasonable meaning of the words in their
ordinary usage as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill
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