THE EVIDENCE
The examiner relies upon the following as evidence of unpatentability:
M ilhaupt 3,235,101 Feb. 15, 1966
Gram 4,284,188 Aug. 18, 1981
Rathert 5,375,967 Dec. 27, 1994
THE REJECTIONS
The appellant seeks review of the examiner’s rejections of claims 1, 4, 7 and 14
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as being anticipated by Gram , claim 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Gram in view of Rathert and claim 6 under 35 U.S.C. § 10 3(a)
as being unpatentable over Gram in view of Milhaupt.
The examiner presents reasoning in support of the rejections in the examiner's
answer (mailed July 25, 2005). The appellant offers opposing arguments in the
appellant's brief (filed June 15, 2005).
OPINION
The appellant and the examiner disagree about the weight that should be giv en to
the books, the material worked on in the claimed device. See brie f, pp. 6-7 and answer, p.
4. Ac cordingly, the first issue in this appeal is one of claim interpretation and, in
particular, the weight to be given to the term “books” in claim 1.
We thus begin our review of the rejections involved in this appeal by first
interpreting the language of independent claim 1. In so doing, we keep in m ind the
following pr inciple:
“[A] claim preamble has the import that the claim as a whole
suggests for it.” Bell Communications Research Inc. v. Vitalink
Communications Corp., 55 F.3d 615, 620, 34 USPQ2d 1816 ,
1820 (Fed. Cir. 1995). If the claim preamble, when read in the
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