Appeal No. 2004-0061
Application 09/745,762
employed in the claim(s) must be analyzed, not in a vacuum, but
always in light of the teachings of the prior art and of the
particular application disclosure as it would be interpreted by
one possessing the ordinary level of skill in the pertinent art.
See In re Johnson, 558 F.2d 1008, 1016 n.17, 194 USPQ 187, 194
n.17 (CCPA 1977). When that standard of evaluation is applied to
the language employed in the claims before us on appeal, we are
of the opinion that those claims set out and circumscribe a
particular area with a reasonable degree of precision and
particularity.
Given the foregoing, we will not sustain the examiner's
rejection of appellant's claims 23 through 35 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, second paragraph.
We next look to the examiner's prior art rejection of claims
23 through 35 under § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Shreim.
After a careful assessment of appellants’ independent claims 23
and 29 and of the Shreim reference, we must agree with
appellant’s position as set forth in the brief (pages 12-16) and
in the reply brief, that Shreim does not disclose a second
interior compartment carved out of and retained within a first
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