Appeal No. 2006- 1669
Application No. 10/476,257
thereon constitutes a definition of the term “winglet” as a structure, having a
control surface moveably mounted thereon, at the tip of an aircraft wing.1
Accordingly, there is nothing in the appellant’s specification that would cause one
of ordinary skill in the art to understand that the appellant is using the term
“winglet” in a more restricted manner than its customary meaning within the art.
There is strong evidence in the record before us, in the form of the definition
of “winglet” as “a small, nearly vertical surface mounted at the tip of an aircraft
wing to decrease drag resistance” from the McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific
and Technical Terms cited on page 8 of the appellant’s brief, from which the term
“fixed” is conspicuously absent, and the Allen, Daude and Brix patents, all of
which describe winglets, or portions thereof, that are moveable or articulating
relative to the wing, that the use of the term “winglet” in the aircraft field is not
restricted to structures that are fixed to the wing. Accordingly, our determination
that Allen’s “winglet” 12 or 14 meets the “winglet” limitation in appellant’s claim
1 (the representative claim selected under 37 CFR § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) to decide the
appeal of the rejection of claims 1-7, 11-15, 20, 21, 23, 252 and 26 as being
anticipated by Allen (decision, p. 4)), notwithstanding that it is not fixedly
mounted to the wing, is supported by the record in this case and was not reached in
error.
1 Likewise, Allen’s description of an articulating winglet does not constitute a definition therein of the term
“winglet” as a structure foldably mounted to a wing.
2 We recognize that claim 25 includes the limitation “fixed winglet” (emphasis added), but claim 25 was not argued
in appellant’s brief, reply brief or supplemental reply brief (filed May 24, 2006) separately from claim 1. The
rejection of claim 24, which also includes the limitation of a “fixed winglet,” under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Allen was not mentioned at all by appellant in any of the brief, reply brief or supplemental reply
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007