Appeal No. 2004-0672
Application No. 09/894,704
We begin our assessment of the section 102 rejection by
setting forth the long established legal principle that
anticipation is established when a single prior art reference
discloses, expressly or under principles of inherency, each and
every element of the claimed invention. RCA Corp. v. Applied
Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388
(Fed. Cir. 1984).
In applying this legal principle to the anticipation issue
before us, we are convinced that the examiner’s section 102
rejection is well taken. Concerning this rejection, the only
argument advanced in the brief is that “[a]ppellant’s [sic,
appellants’] representative does not see where these arms [of
Yoshida] are movable towards and away from each other” (brief,
page 4). However, the right and left arms 47 of patentee’s
shower apparatus are expressly disclosed as separately adjustable
(i.e., rotatably adjustable about shaft 28A) such that one arm
can be moved relative to the other (e.g., see lines 11-14 and
lines 22-35 in column 18, the paragraph bridging columns 18 and
19 as well as Figures 11, 16 and 31). It follows that, when
these right and left arms are rotated in opposite clockwise
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