Appeal No. 2003-0360 Page 7
Application No. 09/264,398
This rejection of claim 33 is sustained.
The Rejections Under Section 102
Anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) is established only when a single prior art
reference discloses, either expressly or under the principles of inherency, each and
every element of the claimed invention. See, for example, In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475,
1480-1481, 31 USPQ2d 1671, 1675 (Fed. Cir. 1994) and In re Spada, 911 F.2d 705,
708, 15 USPQ2d 1655, 1657 (Fed. Cir. 1990). Anticipation by a prior art reference
does not require either the inventive concept of the claimed subject matter or
recognition of inherent properties that may be possessed by the reference. See
Verdegaal Brothers Inc. v. Union Oil Co. of California, 814 F.2d 628, 633, 2 USPQ2d
1051, 1054 (Fed. Cir. 1987). Nor does it require that the reference teach what the
applicant is claiming, but only that the claim on appeal "read on" something disclosed in
the reference, i.e., all limitations of the claim are found in the reference. See Kalman v.
Kimberly-Clark Corp, 713 F.2d 760, 772, 218 USPQ 781, 789 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert.
denied, 465 U.S. 1026 (1984).
The first rejection under Section 102 is that claims 20-32 and 34 are anticipated
by Burland. The examiner has explained on page 4 of the Answer how the language of
claim 20 reads on the load carrier disclosed by Burland in Figure 6. We agree with this
analysis. We are not persuaded by the appellant’s arguments that it is in error. The
fact that the Burland carrier is “mounted differently” than that of the appellants’ invention
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