Appeal No. 2004-0700
Application No. 09/531,671
drawing. However, neither claim 14 nor any of the other argued
claims on appeal contains any such requirement.
We here emphasize that, during examination proceedings,
claims are to be given their broadest reasonable interpretation
consistent with the specification. In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367,
1372, 54 USPQ2d 1664, 1667 (Fed. Cir. 2000). Similarly, while
claims are to be interpreted in light of the specification,
limitations from the specification are not to be read into the
claims. Comack Communications, Inc. v. Harris Corp., 156 F.3d
1182, 1186, 48 USPQ2d 1001, 1005 (Fed. Cir. 1998).
Here, it is indisputable that appealed claim 14 does not
expressly require encapsulating the entire exposed surfaces of
the integrated circuits as shown, for example, in the appellant’s
drawing. Moreover, the fact that claim 14 explicitly recites
“encapsulating . . . at least a portion of each lead frame”
(emphasis added) evinces that it is proper to interpret the here
claimed encapsulating step as encompassing embodiments wherein
only a portion of the feature in question is encapsulated or
covered. A more narrow interpretation would involve the
impermissible practice of reading limitations from the
appellant’s specification and drawing disclosure into the
appealed claim. Id.
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