Appeal No. 2005-1379
Application 09/734,601
Our consideration of the first ground of rejection under § 103(a) requires that we initially
interpret appealed claims 5 and 6 by giving the terms thereof the broadest reasonable
interpretation in their ordinary usage as they would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the
art in light of the written description in the specification, including the drawings, as interpreted
by this person, unless another meaning is intended by appellant as established in the written
description of the specification, and without reading into the claims any limitation or particular
embodiment disclosed in the specification. See, e.g., In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55,
44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321-22, 13 USPQ2d 1320,
1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989). We determine that the plain language of independent claim 5 specifies a
two part teaching puzzle apparatus comprising at least a puzzle board with edges having an
outline shape reflective of the “periodic chart,” that is, “based upon the periodic chart of
chemical elements that provides an array of rows and columns of said chemical elements;
wherein the location of each element is based upon its chemical properties,” the “puzzle board
having a shape accommodating an array of said cubes that reflects the configuration of said
periodic chart;” and a plurality of cubic shaped pieces, that is, “cubes,” each of which
corresponds to a chemical element of the periodic chart and has on at least one face information
pertaining to the chemical name of an element.
We determine that one of ordinary skill in this art would consider the term “periodic
chart” to include the well known periodic table of chemical elements. Indeed, appellant states in
the written description in the specification that the disclosed puzzle is based on the periodic table
of chemical elements (e.g., page 1, ll. 6-15, page 3, ll. 17-26, and page 5, ll. 9-11). The periodic
table is generally presented in the scientific literature, including textbooks, in several ways.
First, as illustrated in specification Fig. 1, with elements 57 and 89 positioned as shown therein,
again with a suitable notation that the sequences of the remaining fourteen (14) elements in the
Lanthanide series and the Actinide series follows Cesium, element 58, and Thorium, element 59,
respectively.2 We find with respect to this representation, that appellant refers to the remaining
fourteen (14) elements of the Lanthanide series and the Actinide series as the Cesium and
2 See, e.g., Amos Turk et al. (Turk), Introduction to Chemistry, p. 48 (Academic Press, New
York. 1968) (copy attached).
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