Appeal No. 2004-1023 Page 4
Application No. 09/393,714
The Rejection Under Section 102
Claim 18 stands rejected as being anticipated2 by Williams. In arriving at this
conclusion, the examiner has found in the final rejection that Williams’ statement that
creating boundary conditions in a fuel supply being pulsated to suppress combustion
instabilities can be accomplished by “multiple exciters” at “appropriate locations”
indicates to one of ordinary skill in the art that multiple fuel lines “necessarily” must be
used (Paper No. 30, pages 2 and 3). Conspicuously absent, however, is mention of
where the reference teaches the step of “completing a modulation period . . . ,” which is
the final step of claim 18. Among other arguments, this omission has been challenged
by the appellants (Reply Brief, page 3).
Even if one accepts, arguendo, the examiner’s assertion that one of ordinary skill
in the art would have understood from the specification that the Williams system
requires multiple modulated fuel lines in order to accomplish its purposes, the examiner
has not indicated to us, and we have not located on our own, any disclosure or teaching
in Williams that supports a conclusion that the final step of claim 18 is disclosed or
2Anticipation is established only when a single prior art reference discloses, expressly or under the
principles of inherency, each and every element of the claimed invention. See, for example, RCA Corp. v.
Applied Digital Data Systems, Inc., 730 F.2d 1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 385, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984). A
reference anticipates a claim if it discloses the claimed invention such that a skilled artisan could take its
teachings in combination with his own knowledge of the particular art and be in possession of the
invention. In re Graves, 69 F.3d 1147, 1152, 36 USPQ2d 1697, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 1995), cert. denied,
116 S.Ct. 1362 (1996), quoting from In re LeGrice, 301 F.2d 929, 936, 133 USPQ 365, 372 (CCPA 1962).
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