Appeal No. 2006-2104
Application No. 10/655,904
subject matter be fully understood. Absent an express intent to
impart a novel meaning to a claim term, the words take on the
ordinary and customary meanings attributed to them by those of
ordinary skill in the art. Brookhill-Wilk 1, LLC v. Intuitive
Surgical, Inc., 334 F.3d 1294, 1298 (Fed. Cir. 2003). The claim
construction analysis begins with the words of the claim. See
Vitronics Corp. v. Conceptronic, Inc., 90 F.3d 1576, 1582, 39
USPQ2d, 1573, 1576 (Fed. Cir. 1996). Claims will be given their
broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the
specification, and limitations appearing in the specification are
not to be read into the claims. In re Etter, 756 F.2d 852, 858,
225 USPQ 1, 5 (Fed. Cir. 1985). Accordingly, we will initially
direct our attention to Appellant’s claim 1 to derive an
understanding of the scope and content thereof.
Claim 1 is directed to an infrared sensor which detects
acoustic absorption of electromagnetic radiation having a
wavelength less than about 10 micrometers using a body of SiC
having a thickness of at least about 400 micrometer. Although
Appellant argues that the claimed sensor produces “unexpected
results” because no infrared radiation of wavelength lass than 10
micrometers were previously detected (brief, page 8), Appellant’s
disclosure merely identifies using a single crystal SiC body of
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