Appeal No. 2005-0638
Application No. 10/087,301
B. The Rejections under § 102(b)
The same issues arise with regard to each of the examiner’s
rejections under section 102(b) over Von Kohorn, Severini and
Guertin (Answer, pages 3-6; Brief, pages 15-31; Reply Brief,
pages 5-8 and 13-18). Accordingly, we consider these rejections
together, with consideration limited to independent claim 30.
To anticipate a claim under section 102(b), every limitation
of the claim must be disclosed, either expressly or under the
principles of inherency, by a prior art reference. See In re
King, 801 F.2d 1324, 1326, 231 USPQ 136, 138 (Fed. Cir. 1986).
Implicit in any analysis of the examiner’s rejection is that the
claim must first have been correctly construed to define the
scope and meaning of any contested limitation. See Gechter v.
Davidson, 116 F.3d 1454, 1457, 43 USPQ2d 1030, 1032 (Fed. Cir.
1997).
The examiner clearly construes the contested claim language
“a coating station that directly or indirectly applies a
substantially uneven coating to at least some...of a filamentous
article” (see claim 30) to mean any coating station that is
capable of applying a “substantially uneven” coating to the
filamentous article (e.g., Answer, page 8). Appellant construes
this same claim language as “both a structural and a functional
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