Appeal No. 2004-1407
Application No. 10/057,334
points believed to have been misapprehended or overlooked in
rendering the decision. 37 C.F.R. § 1.197. It does. However,
appellant urges that the Board improperly based its conclusion
that a prima facie case of obviousness of the invention of Claim
5 had been established in view of combined prior art on (1)
hindsight, and (2) an improper combination of nonanalogous
references. We disagree.
“During patent examination the pending claims must be
interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow. In re
Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989).
When interpreting claim language, one looks first to the claim
language itself and then to the specification. The claimed
methods comprise the acts of “advancing a heat exchange catheter
device into the patient; circulating coolant through the catheter
device . . . and performing [aneurysm (Claim 5) or minimally
invasive heart (Claim 8)] surgery . . . while the patient’s
temperature is below normal body temperature.” The Board
properly looked to the specification to give meaning to the claim
language and determine the broadest reasonable scope and content
of the claimed subject matter.
As it did in its brief, Appellant again argues that the
teachings of Clifton and Ginsburg are not combinable because
Clifton requires profound hypothermia during surgery and Ginsburg
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