Appeal 2007-1788
Application 09/766,032
leader, it compresses the spring, closes the switch, and actuates the bulb (id.
at Abstract).
As noted by the majority, Riead describes adjusting the buoyancy of
the float and the sensitivity of the lamp-actuating switch:
[F]or maximum efficiency, the float buoyancy should be only
very slightly greater than its own weight plus the variable
leader load applied thereto, so that it is submerged by only a
slight increase in leader load which occurs when a fish takes the
bait, and the lamp switch sensitivity should be such that the
switch is closed by a still smaller increase in the leader load.
(Id. at col. 1, ll. 51-68.) Riead states that the switch sensitivity “must be
sufficiently great that the lamp will be lighted by an additional leader lead
less than that required to submerge the float completely. Otherwise the
lamp might not light at all, or only after the float was submerged, when it
would be useless.” (Id. at col. 5, ll. 9-13, emphasis added.) Thus, Riead
describes adjusting “the tension of spring 64, . . . [so] that the lamp . . .
light[s] in response to a downward pull on the leader, before the float body
submerges completely” (id. at col. 5, ll. 13-19, emphasis added).
That is, Riead requires that spring 64 be compressed completely, to
close the switch and actuate the light bulb, before the bobber is submerged.
In contrast, claims 18 and 19 require the spring to be completely compressed
only when the bobber main body is completely submerged.
As discussed above, I would interpret the term “about equal” (or
“approximately equal” or “substantially equal”), in light of Appellant’s
Specification, to exclude the embodiment depicted in instant Figures 2-4.
In my view, the majority’s interpretation is unreasonably broad. As I
interpret the claims, they do not read on the teaching in Riead of a bobber
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