Appeal No. 2004-2354
Application No. 09/923,991 Page 5
within the enclosure. Nor does appellant argue that the foam
located within the enclosure of Jordan does not possess the
claimed property of being crushable. Rather, appellant’s
principal argument against the examiner’s anticipation rejection
of claims 1 and 21 over Jordan is based on appellant’s
interpretation of the claim term “matrix” as being limited to a
particular definition of that term that, in appellant’s view,
would not be inclusive of the foam of Jordan. In this regard,
appellant (brief, page 6) argues that the foam of Jordan “is not
structured ‘in rectangular arrangement of elements’” as required
for appellant’s claimed “matrix.” Appellant asserts that such a
claim interpretation is supported, in part, by the definition 5b
of “matrix” in Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary.2
On the other hand, the examiner maintains that the claimed
“matrix” is not limited to the specific dictionary definition
espoused by appellant. In the examiner’s view, another
definition of the claim term “matrix” as a “material in which
something is enclosed or embedded" that was found by the examiner
in Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary as referred to by the
examiner in the answer should be employed. Moreover, the
2 See appendix 1 of appellant’s reply brief for a copy of
that definition.
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