Appeal No. 2004-0619
Application No. 10/061,140
the notch feature thereof, disclosed by Burr. Citing Comark
Communications v. Harris Corp., 156 F.3d 1182, 1187, 48 USPQ2d
1001, 1005 (Fed. Cir. 1998) the Appellants argue that “[t]he term
notch is an amorphous term of the type described by the Court
in Comark” (brief, page 3). The Appellants then argue that
“[f]ollowing the Court in Comark it is clear that for a term as
amorphous as the term notch, reading the claims in light of the
specification requires looking to the specification to ascertain
the meaning of the term” and that “[a]s described above the notch
described in the specification and shown in Figures 1A, 3B and 5A
is neither described not [sic, nor] shown in the Burr patent and
claims 1, 9, and 14 are allowable over the cited patent” (brief,
page 4). We perceive no persuasive merit in the Appellants’
argument.
Contrary to the Appellants’ contention, the term notch is in
no way ambiguous or amorphous. The record before us including the
Burr patent and the Appellants’ own disclosure reflects that
“notch” has an art-recognized meaning which is consistent with its
dictionary definition. Moreover, the aforenoted contention is not
supported, as the Appellants seem to believe, by the fact that the
subject specification and the Burr patent both use this term in
describing notches which differ from one another. Rather, this
44
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007