Appeal No. 2006-0235
Application 09/733,352
“shipping” and “storage” are used interchangeably to characterize spool 15. Thus, we determine
that one of ordinary skill in this art would have had knowledge of the spools used to “take up”
fiber during manufacture, “store” and/or “ship” optical fiber, with a spool being capable of all
three functions, and therefore, appellants indeed need not definitively describe such spools. See
In re Howarth, 654 F.2d 103, 210 USPQ 689, 691, 693 (CCPA 1981) (“An inventor need not,
however, explain every detail since he is speaking to those skilled in the art. What is
conventional knowledge will be read into the disclosure.”). As we found above, appellants
acknowledge that drawn fibers are wound on various spools in known fiber draw manufacturing
techniques, and, as the examiner finds, Knowles also evinces that winding optical fiber on a
spool was known in the art (see above p.5). Thus, on this record, any spool known for the take
up, storage and/or shipping of optical fibers, including spools which enable access to both ends
of the optical fiber, would have been used by one of ordinary skill in this art in optical fiber draw
manufacturing processes that use the methods and apparatus disclosed by Knowles, as indeed,
this person would not have found any requirement in Knowles for a particular kind or size of
spool.
We are reinforced in our view by the examiner’s finding that Bice would have
acknowledged in the background section thereof that OTDR is an important optical fiber test
which requires access to both ends of the fiber (answer, pages 9 and 12), which finding accords
with appellants’ acknowledgment that OTDR is an example of a test that utilizes both ends of a
length of fiber (specification, page 3, ll. 19-25). Thus, while we agree with appellants that
Knowles and Bice do not disclose such a spool per se (reply brief, pages 8-9; brief, pages 8-9),
on this record, one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to use a spool that
enables access to both ends of the optical fiber to run OTDR tests which are important as
acknowledged by Bice and by appellants. We point out here with respect to appellants’
reference to the spool described in specification FIG. 6 in argument (reply brief, page 8), that
there is no limitation in appealed claim 4 specific to this preferred embodiment and we find no
basis in the language in this claim or in the written description in the specification to read such a
limitation into the claim. See Morris, 127 F.3d at 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d at 1027; Zletz, 893 F.2d
at 321-22, 13 USPQ2d at 1322. Appellants takes the same position with respect to claim 11,
which stands rejected on both grounds, as with claim 4 (reply brief, page 6), and we find no
- 9 -
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007