Appeal No. 2005-0537
Application No. 08/925,985 Page 7
claims not withstanding the use of the above-noted terms therein.
However, appellants do not point to any particular definition or
standard provided in their specification for those terms or
provide other evidence of a known industry standard that those of
ordinary skill in the art would have readily recognized as being
understood as representing the definition of “pure” and
“substantially pure” in the context of the appealed method claims
before us. Rather, in the reply brief filed September 27, 2004,
appellants refer to two particular dictionary definitions of the
term “pure” in Webster’s New World Dictionary, Third College
Edition (1994) wherein the term “pure” is reportedly defined as
“free from an adulterant” or “unmixed.” Thus, in support of
their argued definiteness position, appellants seemingly urge
that the term “pure” as used in the context of representative
claim 1 would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art
to require a metallic material that is either unmixed or free
from an adulterant. Similarly, with regard to representative
claim 25, appellants maintain that the “substantially pure
metallic planar upper surface” language in question would be
understood by one of ordinary skill in the art as requiring a
metallic planar upper surface that is unmixed or substantially
free of an adulterant. Likewise, concerning representative claim
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