Appeal No. 2004-1603
Application No. 09/626,517
OPINION
We have carefully reviewed the claims, specification and
applied prior art references, including all of the arguments
advanced by the examiner and the appellants in support of their
respective positions. This review has led us to conclude that
the examiner’s Section 102(b) rejections are not well founded.
Accordingly, we reverse the examiner’s Section 102(b) rejections
for essentially those reasons set forth in the Brief and the
Reply Brief. We add the following primarily for emphasis.
In proceedings before the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office,
claims in an application must be given their broadest reasonable
interpretation, taking into account any enlightenment by way of
definition or otherwise found in the specification. In re
Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054, 44 USPQ2d 1023,1027 (Fed. Cir.
1997). “No claim may be read apart from and independent of the
supporting disclosure on which it is based.” See In re Cohn, 438
F.2d 989, 993, 169 USPQ 95, 98 (CCPA 1971).
Applying the above principles to the presently claimed
subject matter, we determine that the term “side band member” or
“band member” recited in claims 1, 12, 20 and 29 means “a side or
other base portion (independent of projections) for supporting
projections”. This interpretation is supported by the
specification and the doctrine of claim differentiation. See the
5
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007