Appeal No. 2005-1833 Page 3
Application No. 10/338,337
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
Claims 23-27, 30 and 32
The dispositive issue in the appeal of the rejection of these claims as being
anticipated by Castner is the meaning of the limitation “a pump housing having a
connector cap, a first pump chamber, and a second pump chamber that are connected
together as one monolithic piece” of claim 23. The examiner (1) contends that this
limitation “can be interpreted as requiring only the two pump chambers to be formed
monolithically” and (2) interprets the term “monolithic” as “constituting or acting as a
single piece”1 (answer, page 3). The appellant, on the other hand, argues that claim 23
should be interpreted as requiring the connector cap and the two pump chambers to be
formed as one monolithic piece (reply brief, pages 2-3) and cites a definition of
“monolithic” as “cast as a single piece” (reply brief, page 3). For the reasons which
follow, we conclude that the appellants are correct on both points.
As for the interpretation of “monolithic,” the definition offered by appellants in
their reply brief is more consistent with the definitions cited in several dictionaries
1 Although the examiner urges that this interpretation “is consistent with the dictionary definition”
(answer, page 3), as pointed out by the appellants on page 3 of the reply brief, the examiner does not cite
the dictionary from which this definition is extracted.
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