Appeal No. 2005-1164 Page 4
Application No. 09/721,131
in part (c) of claim 22 “means reduction of HIV infection with the end or desired
result being testing negative for the presence of HIV infection (Specification, pg.
11, lines 18-23).” Accordingly, for the purposes of our discussion we have
construed part (c) of claim 22 to mean that the end result of performing method
steps 1 and 2 is that a human having HIV infection prior to treatment will test
negative for the presence of HIV infection after treatment of the method steps.
Claim 28:
Claim 28 depends from claim 27, which in turn depends from claim 22.
Accordingly, claim 28, through its dependency on claim 27, provides two
additional limitations to the method of claim 22. First, claim 28 requires that the
sodium chloride formulation of the method set forth in claim 22 “is a mixture with
a form of potassium in a weight ratio amount of Na:K up to about 1:1.” See claim
27. The second limitation added by claim 28 is that “the mixture contains up to
about 20% by weight of another ingredient selected from the group consisting of
S, P, Zn, Mn, Fe, Cu, Cr, I, Mg, Co, Se, and combinations thereof.” See claim
28, emphasis added. However, as the examiner points out (Answer, page 10),
the phrase “up to about 20%” includes zero as the lower limit. In re Mochel, 470
F.2d 638, 640, 176 USPQ 194, 195 (CCPA 1972). Accordingly, we interpret the
phrase “up to about 20%” as it appears in claim 28 to include 0%.
Accordingly, as we understand it, claim 28 further limits claim 22 by
requiring that the sodium chloride formulation is a mixture with a form of
potassium in a weight ratio amount of Na:K up to about 1:1.
DISCUSSION
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