Appeal No. 2006-1203
Application No. 10/370,976
(answer, page 6), although Tran operates the disclosed dual strip
antenna as an open-ended parallel plate waveguide (col. 11, lines
54-57), the claimed connection of the strips to the signal feed
and the ground is still present. Therefore, while Tran does not
explicitly mention the ground connection, as held in In re Graves, 69
F.3d 1147, 1152, 36 USPQ2d 1697, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 1995), we find that a person
of ordinary skill in the art would understand the grounding of
the outer connector of a coaxial cable. See also Helifix Ltd. v.
Blok-Lok, Ltd., 208 F.3d 1339, 1347, 54 USPQ2d 1299, 1304 (Fed. Cir. 2000) (even if a
piece of prior art does not expressly disclose a limitation, it anticipates if a person of
ordinary skill in the art would understand the prior art to disclose the limitation and could
combine the prior art description with his own knowledge to make the claimed
invention).
Therefore, to the extent claimed, Tran describes every
feature of claim 1 including the two elements having resonant
frequencies in two different frequency bands. Contrary to
Appellants’ position that claim 1 requires a dual-band antenna
having separate elements that can operate as independent
radiators to provide dual band operation (brief, page 10), there
is nothing in the claim to definitively limit the claim such that
the antenna elements operate as independent radiators.
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