Appeal No. 2006-0235
Application 09/733,352
set forth in the written description of the specification, and the disclosure at page 4, ll. 2-4, of the
specification, on which appellants rely, is merely an “example” of a general arrangement which
can provide the claimed function with little specific structure which we will not read into the
claim as a limitation. Accordingly, on this record, we determine that the phrase “operatively
connected” would have its customary general meaning in claim drafting, and thus, claim 33
encompasses the load cell 29 operatively connected to fiber 8 via tractor assembly 11 mounted
on plate 28 of Knowles, which arrangement is capable of performing the function designated in
the claim of monitoring the tension of the fiber between capstans which can be the tractor
assembles of Knowles.
The plain language of claims 16 and 34 requires any manner of “a load cell connected” in
any fashion to any manner of “a pulley which . . . contacts the fiber . . . causing said pulley to
rotate,” in which the term “connected” is at issue. Appellants submit that under the examiner’s
use of the term “connected,” “every machine in the word is connected,” and in this respect, point
to the term as used in the disclosure of a particular embodiment in the specification at page 10,
ll. 26-29: “[t]urnaround pulley 22 is connected to a load cell which monitors the amount of
tension applied onto the turnaround pulley by the passing fiber, and thus monitors the amount of
tension being imparted to the fiber;” and at page 11, ll. 6-9: “in a preferred embodiment,
feedback from the load cell of the turnaround pulley 22 is used to adjust the differential speed of
the screening capstan 24 so that a sufficient screening tension is maintained consistently
throughout the drawing of the entire optical fiber blank into optical fiber” (reply brief, pages
6-7 and 10; brief, pages 5-6). Appellants argue that this disclosure makes clear “that the pulley
must be operatively connected to the load cell so that the load cell can monitor tension of the
fiber via contact with the pulley” (id.). The examiner submits that appellants’ position requires
reading limitations from the specification into the claims (answer, pages 10-11).
We have considered the term “connected” of these claims in the context of the claim
language and the written description in the specification, including the drawings, in giving it the
broadest reasonable interpretation in ordinary usage in context, mindful that a limitation or
particular embodiment disclosed in the specification cannot be read into the claim.
See Am. Acad. of Sci. Tech. Ctr., 367 F.3d at 1364, 70 USPQ2d at 1830; Morris, 127 F.3d at
1054-55, 44 USPQ2d at 1027; Zletz, 893 F.2d at 321-22, 13 USPQ2d at 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989);
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