Appeal No. 2006-2205 Page 7
Application No. 10/699,956
proceedings, claim language is given its broadest reasonable
interpretation consistent with the specification as it would have
been interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re
Graves, 69 F.3d 1147, 1152, 36 USPQ2d 1697, 1701 (Fed. Cir.
1995).
Further, appellants’ arguments to the effect that Shamshoum
defines the term iPP film as requiring the majority of the
polyolefin content thereof to be highly isotactic polyolefin at
column 2, lines 30-35 thereof is not well taken. That portion of
the disclosure of Shamshoum merely notes that the polyolefin
composition that Shamshoum is referring to includes a highly
isotactic polypropylene, as a majority thereof. Thus, those
arguments simply miss the mark in appellants’ attempt at
narrowing the scope of appellants’ claim limitations. When a
claim does not recite allegedly distinguishable features,
“appellant[s] cannot rely on them to establish patentability.”
In re Self, 671 F.2d 1344, 1350-1351, 213 USPQ 1, 7 (CCPA 1982).
As for product claim 71, we note that claim is in a product-
by-process format and appellants arguments fair no better in
relation thereto. While claim 71 does not employ the
transitional term “comprising”, the film product made by a cast
process called for therein has not been shown to be limited to a
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