Appeal No. 2004-1110
Application No. 08/866,754
that a claim interpretation must be reasonable and consistent
with the specification. See In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1372, 54
USPQ2d 1664, 1667 (Fed. Cir. 2000).
In light of the foregoing, we cannot sustain the examiner’s
section 102 rejection of claims 52-57 as being anticipated by
Kuhfus.
With respect to the section 102 rejection based on Gordecki,
the appellants “acknowledge that Gordecki . . . does indeed have
teeth and recesses” (brief, page 7), which structurally
correspond to the here claimed engaging elements (i.e., see item
(i) of appealed independent claim 52), but argue that the teeth
and recesses of patentee’s device do not satisfy the functional
limitation of their independent claim, namely, “wherein said
engaging elements are oriented so that when engaged they prevent
said two halves of said clamshell housing from having substantial
relative motion between themselves along said interface when said
device is subjected to bending and/or torsional moments.”3
3 The appellants seem to believe that the above quoted
functional language of independent claim 52 requires that “the
engaging elements must keep the halves of the clamshell housing
from separating from each other” (brief, page 8). This is
incorrect. Neither this claim nor the appellants’ specification
disclosure expressly recites such a requirement. We here remind
the appellants that, during examination proceedings, claims are
given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with
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