Appeal No. 2006-3175
Application No. 10/419,601
of course, do not stand alone but, rather, are part of a fully integrated written
instrument consisting principally of a specification that concludes with the claims.
For that reason, claims must be read in view of the specification, of which they are
a part. "[T]he specification is always highly relevant to the claim construction
analysis. Usually, it is dispositive; it is the single best guide to the meaning of a
disputed term." Id.
In this instance, the intended manner of use of the elastic band of appellant’s
invention can be clearly understood from appellant’s specification (p. 3, fourth
para.) and drawings (Figs. 2 and 4) to comprise being fitted around the diameter of
the bottle so as to be clearly visible to the user and so as not to interfere with the
removal or replacement of the cap or the filling or dispensing of liquid into and
from the bottle. Accordingly, when read in light of such disclosure, one of
ordinary skill in the art would not interpret the language of claim 1 to include an
elastic band sized so as to fit snugly on a baby bottle when doubled or tripled about
the bottle or when extended about the length of the bottle, so as to cover the nipple
and cap and thus interfere with the filling and dispensing of the contents thereof.
The examiner’s positions (1) and (2) as to how the elastic bands of Lyon are sized
to fit snugly on a baby bottle thus are not well taken. As for the examiner’s
position (3), while appellant’s specification expressly intends to cover elastic bands
of any size to fit any bottle on the market (specification, p. 3), which we interpret
to mean any baby bottle known in the art, the examiner has not offered any
evidence to show that a “large diameter baby bottle” having a diameter of about
that of the containers addressed by Lyon is known in the art to thereby establish
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