Appeal No. 2004-1995
Application No. 10/018,332
4) Claims 11 and 13 through 15 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
anticipated by the disclosure of Kinkelaar.
OPINION
We have carefully reviewed the claims, specification and prior
art, including all of the arguments advanced by both the examiner
and the appellants in support of their respective positions. This
review has led us to conclude that the examiner’s Section 102
rejections are not well founded. Accordingly, we will not sustain
the examiner’s Section 102 rejections for the reasons set forth in
the Brief and the Reply Brief. We add the following primarily for
emphasis.
Under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) or (e), a prior art reference
anticipates the claimed subject matter if it describes every
feature of the claimed subject matter, either explicitly or
inherently. RCA Corp. v. Applied Digital Data Sys., Inc., 730 F.2d
1440, 1444, 221 USPQ 384, 388 (Fed. Cir. 1984). The description of
the claimed subject matter in the prior art reference must be clear
and unequivocal such that it directs one of ordinary skill in the
art to the claimed subject matter without any need for picking and
choosing. In re Schaumann, 572 F.2d 312, 316-18, 197 USPQ 5, 8-10
(CCPA 1978); In re Arkley, 455 F.2d 586, 587, 172 USPQ 524, 526
(CCPA 1972).
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