Source: https://www.ptab.us/2013/11/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 09:46:23+00:00

Document:
relied on to prove anticipation must be so clear and explicit that those skilled in the art will have no difficulty in ascertaining their meaning. In re Turlay, 304 F.2d 893, 899 (CCPA 1962).
The Examiner appears to find that Gerber’s cutting edge 40 corresponds to both the claimed cutting tip and the claimed cutting edge. However, “when an applicant uses different terms in a claim it is permissible to infer that he intended his choice of different terms to reflect a differentiation in the meaning of those terms.” Innova/Pure Water, Inc. v. Safari Water Filtration Sys., Inc., 381 F.3d 1111, 1119 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
It is well settled that alternative elements which are positively recited in the Specification may be explicitly excluded from the claims. See In re Johnson, 558 F.2d 1008, 1019 (CCPA 1977) (“[The] specification, having described the whole, necessarily described the part remaining.”).
See Ultramercial, Inc. v. Hulu, LLC, 722 F.3d 1335, 1348 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (“[P]rogramming creates a new machine, because a general purpose computer in effect becomes a special purpose computer once it is programmed to perform particular functions pursuant to instructions from program software.”) (quoting In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1544 (Fed. Cir. 1994)).
2171 Ex Parte Muir 11831660 - (D) JENKS 103 102(b) CAREY, RODRIGUEZ, GREENBERG & O'KEEFE, LLP LEGGETT, ANDREA C.
Interpreting the claim term “removably” to mean merely being capable of being removed so as to encompass dissolution of the adhesive or disruption of other conventional and generally permanent attachment methods identified in Lee does not give appropriate weight to the meaning of that term and is not consistent with the nature of the attachment method disclosed by Appellants. See Bicon, Inc. v. Straumann Co., 441 F.3d 945, 950 (Fed. Cir. 2006) and In re Danly, 263 F.2d 844, 847 (CCPA 1959) (appellant has used such phrases as “for holding” and “for insulating” throughout the appealed claims with the obvious intention of limiting them to actual performance of the stated functions, as distinguished from mere possibility of such performance). The Examiner’s interpretation essentially renders the terms in the claims superfluous as most attachment methods are capable of being removed if exposed to some outside destructive force. Thus, the Examiner’s interpretation is unreasonably broad as it effectively would expunge the term “removably” from the claim language. See Stumbo v. Eastman Outdoors, Inc., 508 F.3d 1358, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (denouncing claim constructions that render phrases in claims superfluous).
[T]he test for obviousness is not whether the features of a secondary reference may be bodily incorporated into the structure of the primary reference; nor is it that the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.
Ans. 15-16 (citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981)).
See In re Woodruff, 919 F.2d 1575, 1578 (Fed. Cir. 1990) (“It is a general rule that merely discovering and claiming a new benefit of an old process cannot render the process again patentable.”); see also Perricone v. Medicis Pharm. Corp., 432 F.3d 1368, 1377-78 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (noting that the realization of a new benefit of an old process does not render that process patentable); Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. v. Ben Venue Laboratories, Inc., 246 F.3d 1368, 1376 (Fed. Cir. 2001) (stating in the context of a claimed process that was drawn to the same use comprising the same steps of the prior art, “[n]ewly discovered results of known processes directed to the same purpose are not patentable because such results are inherent.”).

References: v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v. 
 v.