Appeal No. 2007-0281
Application No. 10/444,073
Thus, claim 1 is directed to a fibrous, non-woven medium comprising
fibrillated and non-fibrillated staple fibers, where the fibrillated fibers make
up about 20-90 wt% of the non-woven web. The claim specifies that the
fibrillated fibers have a CSF of less than about 300 mL and the non-
fibrillated fibers have a CSF of more than about 700 mL. CSF is a measure
of the rate at which a dilute suspension of staple fiber can be drained.
(Specification 4, ll. 17-21.) “[T]he CSF value of a fiber is a measure of its
degree of fibrillation.” (Reply Br. 2.)
Claim 1 uses “comprising” language and therefore does not exclude
the presence of other components in the claimed medium. The specification
states that “[o]ther additive fibers conventionally employed in blood
separation media” may be incorporated. (Specification 7.) “For example,
glass and/or cellulosic fibers may be incorporated.” (Id.)
The preamble of claim 1 states that the claimed composition is a
“blood separation medium.” This recitation, however, does not limit the
structure of the composition defined by the body of the claim, and therefore
is not a claim limitation. See Pitney Bowes Inc. v. Hewlett Packard Co., 182
F.3d 1298, 1305, 51 USPQ2d 1161, 1165-66 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (If “the body
of the claim fully and intrinsically sets forth the complete invention,
including all of its limitations, and the preamble offers no distinct definition
of any of the claimed invention’s limitations, but rather merely states, for
example, the purpose or intended use of the invention, then the preamble is
of no significance to claim construction because it cannot be said to
constitute or explain a claim limitation.”).
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