Appeal No. 2005-1907 Page 6
Application No. 09/909,898
present situation is not one in which there is only a general discussion of further features not
needed to interpret the particular words at issue. In such a case, it is indeed improper to limit the
claims to those features. See In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320, 1325, 72 USPQ2d 1209, 1210-11 (Fed.
Cir. 2004)(While, according to the specification, the object of the invention was a hair brush for
brushing scalp hair, the court declined to limit the claim terminology “hair brush” to hair brushes
for brushing scalp hair because “hair brush” encompasses the brushing of other body hair and
there was no express disclaimer of the broader meaning); In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1372, 54
USPQ2d 1664, 1668 (Fed. Cir. 2000)(“The specification, although lengthy, contains no
definition of ‘shared’ or ‘sharing’ that would require the Board to construe those limitations in
the narrower manner asserted by Mr. Hyatt.); In re Paulsen, 30 F.3d 1475, 1480, 31 USPQ2d
1671, 1674 (Fed. Cir. 1994)(The word “computer” in the claim was not restricted to the type of
computer described in the specification because there was no specialized definition in the
specification so restricting “computer” to that meaning. Instead “computer” found to encompass
a calculator as the evidence showed that calculators were understood in the art to be computers,
albeit of more limited in function than those described in the specification).
Nor can we agree that the definition provided in the specification is indefinite such that
it fails to provide guidance to one of ordinary skill in the art as to how “mixed substantially
uniformly” is to be limited. The definition requires that one be able to observe the resin phase
and one of ordinary skill in the art would understand how to operate the microscope to perform
the required observation. The specification need not describe the conventional adjustments
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