Appeal No. 2004-1133
Application No. 09/796,253
During prosecution before the examiner, the claim language must be
given the broadest reasonable meaning as ordinarily used, as it
would have been understood by one of ordinary skill in this art,
when read in light of the specification. See In re Morris, 127
F.3d 1048, 1054, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997). The
examiner has construed the term “applying” to include any order of
contact, i.e., placing the foamable material on the substrate or
placing the substrate on the foamable material (Answer, page 5).
Appellant has not pointed to, and we do not find, any teaching or
guidelines in the specification which restrict the meaning and
scope of “applying” the material and substrate together, and thus
agree with the examiner that the broadest reasonable interpretation
of the claimed language includes the step of applying the face
plate (substrate) of Masui to the foamable beads.
Appellant argues that Masui requires that pressure is used to
produce the composite molding while appellant’s invention does not
require pressure to be used (Brief, pages 8-9). As noted by the
examiner (Answer, page 5), this argument is not well taken since
the claims are not limited by any recitation of pressure.
Appellant argues that Masui does not show “expanding the
foamable material at a second temperature higher than the first
temperature, with at least one expanding aid selected from the
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