Appeal No. 2004-0118 Page 6
Application No. 09/214,663
Claims 10 and 11 depend from independent claim 9. They add, respectively, the
integral and separate limitations regarding the relationship between the spacers and the
shells that are added to independent claim 1 by claims 2 and 3. On the basis of the
same reasoning that we set forth above regarding claims 2 and 3, we also will not
sustain the rejection of claims 10 and 11. Nor, it follows, will we sustain the rejection of
claims 13 and 14, which depend from claims 10 and 11.
Independent claim 16 recites, inter alia, “multiple lower stays” and “multiple upper
stays . . . wherein the lower stays and upper stays engage one another . . . to form
spacers in the region of the weld seam.” Thus, this claim requires the presence of
multiple stays, all of which are in the “region” of the weld seam. The common applicable
definition of “stay” is “one that serves as a prop.”2 The appellant would have us
consider “stay” to be limited to a “columnar-type support,” but has provided no evidence
in support of this definition. From our perspective, therefore, each of Luigi’s baffles 13,
which serve as “props” between the top and bottom of the tank, thus satisfy the
limitation that there be “multiple” lower and upper stays. For the reasons set forth in our
discussion of claim 1, we also take the position here that both of Luigi’s baffles 13 are
“in the region of the weld seam.”
2See, for example, Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, p. 1150 (10th Ed., 1996).
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