Appeal No. 2006-0235
Application 09/733,352
Knowles alone and as combined with Bice,4 as applied by the examiner, to one of ordinary skill
in this art at the time the claimed invention was made. Accordingly, since a prima facie case of
obviousness has been established by the examiner, we again evaluate all of the evidence of
obviousness and nonobviousness based on the record as a whole, giving due consideration to the
weight of appellants’ arguments in the brief and reply brief. See generally, In re Oetiker,
977 F.2d 1443, 1445, 24 USPQ2d 1443, 1444 (Fed. Cir. 1992); In re Piasecki, 745 F.2d 1468,
1472, 223 USPQ 785, 788 (Fed. Cir. 1984).
In order to review the examiner’s application of prior art to the appealed claims, we first
interpret independent claim 1, representative of the claims, by giving the terms thereof the
broadest reasonable interpretation in their ordinary usage in context 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, unless another meaning is intended by appellants 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 Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d
1359, 1364, 70 USPQ2d 1827, 1830 (Fed. Cir. 2004); 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). As illustrated by specification Figs. 1 and 2, the plain language of claim
1 specifies a method of screening an optical fiber during a fiber draw process, comprising at least
the steps of pulling any length, however small, of any manner of optical fiber 8 from any manner
of source of optical fiber perform, not illustrated, imparting any amount of tensile stress to fiber
8 to thereby test the strength thereof, and at any subsequent point in the process of
manufacturing fiber 8, winding the fiber in any manner onto any manner of spool, e.g., 15. The
tensile strength is imparted to optical fiber 8 via any manner of first and second capstans 20,24
and the tensile strength is monitored in any manner involving any manner of load cell, not
illustrated, with any manner of feedback from the load cell processed in any manner and used to
adjust the speed to any extent, however small, of either of the capstans 20,24 to maintain the
desired tensile
4 A discussion of Keck and Halliday is not necessary to our decision with respect to either
ground of rejection. See In re Kronig, 539 F.2d 1300, 1302-04, 190 USPQ 425, 426-28 (CCPA
1976).
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