Appeal 2007-4310
Application 10/950,830
specification that indicates that the single scrim layer limitation should be
read out of the claims as a grammatical accident or as an insubstantial
superfluity. Moreover, the Examiner has not indicated that Mangum
describes or suggests skid-resistant pads having only a single layer of scrim.
Instead, the Examiner argues that the claims read on multi-scrim skid-
resistant pads. The Examiner does not rely on Sobonya or Jupina for
teachings or suggestions of single-scrim skid-resistant pads. Accordingly,
the rejections of claims 18 and 19 under § 103(a) are REVERSED.
We consider next the "coverage" limitations in the independent
claims, which are reproduced here for convenient reference (emphasis
added):
Claims 1 and 19 require that the foamed latex resin be
"discontinuous on the scrim, such that at least a portion of the scrim
fibers is visible on the second major surface"; whereas
Claim 18 requires that the foamed latex resin provide
"discontinuous coverage of the scrim fibers on the second major
surface."
The difference in wording implies that resin that is "discontinuous on the
scrim" is distributed differently from resin that is "discontinuous on the
scrim fibers." CAE Screen Plates, Inc. v. Heinrich Fiedler GMBH & Co.
KG, 224 F.3d 1308, 1317, 55 USPQ2d 1804, 1810 (Fed. Cir. 2000) ("In the
absence of any evidence to the contrary, we must presume that the use of
these different terms in the claims connotes different meanings.") (citation
omitted). This impression is strengthened by the disclosure, which indicates
that "[i]n one embodiment, the foamed resin . . . partially covers a second
13
Page: Previous 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Next
Last modified: September 9, 2013