Appeal 2007-1899
Application 10/112,743
claim recites the word ‘comprising’ [and thus], the claim language is open to
having a coating layer regardless of whether it is permanent or not” (id. 6).
Appellants contend “while the toner may temporarily coat or cover a
surface of the semiconductive member, the toner is not a constituent element
of the semiconductive member” (Br. 8; Reply Br. 4-5). Appellants contend
that during the printing process, “[t]he toner . . . may come into contact with
or be disposed on the surface of the coating layer rather than a substance
which constitutes an element of the semiconductive layer” because “after the
image is formed by attachment of the toner to the portion where the latent
image is formed on the photoconductive layer 3, the toner, which has been
arranged as the image, is transferred for printing (see Fig. 4 of Yasuda)” (Br.
12-13; Reply Br. 5). Appellants contend that although the term
“comprising” is open-ended, “the term does not provide for the addition of
elements which are not components of a semiconductive member” (Reply
Br. 6).
The threshold issue in this appeal is whether the Examiner has carried
the burden of establishing that prima facie Yasuda would have described to
one of skill and one of ordinary skill in the art a semiconductive member
comprising a coating layer encompassed by claims 1 and 4.
We interpret a claim by giving the terms thereof the broadest
reasonable interpretation in their ordinary usage in context as they would be
understood by one of ordinary skill in the art, in light of the written
description in the Specification unless another meaning is intended by
Appellants as established therein, and without reading into the claim any
disclosed limitation or particular embodiment. See, e.g., In re Am. Acad. of
3
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