Appeal 2007-0486
Application 10/441,484
applied references. It follows that we shall reverse the Examiner’s separate
anticipation rejections over Eng and Hoffman as to claim 13.
We reverse the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of claims 11, 12 and
14 over Ruddy. This is because we can find no description of a plurality of
protrusive ridges in a layer of body material that delineates a plurality of
separated panels as required by all of the rejected claims in the description or
figures of Ruddy. The Examiner points to column 5, lines 11-15 of Ruddy
(Answer 4). However, that section of the Ruddy disclosure merely notes
that at least one seam can extend along or parallel to a second diameter of a
blanket (40) that overlay another blanket layer having a first diameter and a
seam (Ruddy, col. 5, ll. 11-15 and Figs. 2 and 5). While Ruddy inferentially
describes two or more seams by the “at least one seam” language employed
(id. col. 5, l. 13), Ruddy does not describe multiple ridges and a plurality of
separated panels in a single body layer by this optional use of more than one
seam, as is required by the appealed claims.
It follows that we reverse the Examiner’s anticipation rejection of
claims 11, 12, and 14 over Ruddy.
We shall also reverse the Examiner’s § 112, second paragraph
rejection of claim 14.
The relevant inquiry under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, is
whether the claim language, as it would have been interpreted by one of
ordinary skill in the art in light of Appellants’ Specification and the prior art,
sets out and circumscribes a particular area with a reasonable degree
of precision and particularity. See In re Moore, 439 F.2d 1232, 1235, 169
USPQ 236, 238 (CCPA 1971).
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