Appeal No. 2005-1766
Application 10/050,167
The dispositive issue in this appeal is whether the terms in the claim language “detecting
conductivity of the wet web entering the wet end section,” considered in the context of the
preambular language “monitoring dewatering in a wet end section of a web production machine”
and the language in the limitation “determining a water balance from the measured quantities,
which is indicative of dewatering in the wet end,” of appealed claim 1 when given 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, 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), must be interpreted as “detecting conductivity of the wet web entering the
wet end section, not the conductivity of the wet web in the wet end section, as apparently
interpreted by the Examiner,” as framed by appellant (reply brief, page 2; original emphasis).
We determine that one of ordinary skill in this art would consider the language “a wet
end section of a web production machine” in the context of any web production machine as
described in the specification, to mean monitoring a whole section of the “wet end” of that
machine, such as the press section, and not with respect to a part of a section, such as the nip of a
set of press rolls in the press section. Indeed, we find no disclosure in the written description
from which it can even reasonably be inferred that the determination of a water balance is based
on less than the whole of a wet end section being monitored, which requires detecting the
conductivity of the wet web prior to its entry into the section. See specification, e.g., [0002],
[0017], [0034], [0036], [0038], [0046], [0047], and [0056]. Accordingly, we are of the view that
the claim language “detecting conductivity of the wet web entering the wet end section” must be
given its plain meaning of detecting the conductivity of the wet web before it enters a whole wet
end section being monitored.
In applying Lilburn to the appealed claims, the examiner relies on the determination of a
water balance by a method which includes determining the wet web conductivity by
measurement or calculation after it passes through a roller nip in the press section of a paper
machine, arguing that the reference teaches “using the wet web conductivity of the web coming
into the press using measured or calculated values from the previous nip” which is “equivalent
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