Source: https://www.ptab.us/2016/04/
Timestamp: 2019-04-26 10:25:45+00:00

Document:
See, e.g., Belden Inc. v. Berk-Tek LLC, 805 F.3d 1064, 1073 (Fed. Cir. 2015) ("obviousness concerns whether a skilled artisan not only could have made but would have been motivated to make the combinations or modifications of prior art to arrive at the claimed invention") (emphasis in original).
“The statutory phrase ‘printed publication’ has been interpreted to mean that before the critical date the reference must have been sufficiently accessible to the public interested in the art; dissemination and public accessibility are the keys to the legal determination whether a prior art reference was ‘published.’” In re Cronyn, 890 F.2d 1158, 1160 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (quoting Constant v. Advanced Micro-Devices, Inc., 848 F.2d 1560, 1568 (Fed. Cir. 1988)).
Thus, although Evers' controller may capable of being modified to perform the functions of the "controller," as required in independent claims l, 12, 17, and 18, such a disclosure fails to satisfy the "capable of" test which requires that the prior art structure be capable of performing the function without further programming. Typhoon Touch Techs., Inc. v. Dell, Inc., 659 F.3d 1376, 1380 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (discussing Microprocessor Enhancement Corp. v. Texas Instruments, Inc., 520 F.3d 1367 (Fed. Cir. 2008)). When the functional language is associated with programming or some other structure required to perform the function, that programming or structure must be present in order to meet the claim limitation. Id.
As such, if “between” includes an area unbounded by the boundary of the seat and intermediate sections and includes area outside those sections, then it would be a meaningless limitation because folding the legs under the seat section will necessarily cause the legs to fall into such an area. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. v. U.S. Surgical Corp, 93 F.3d 1572, 1578 (Fed. Cir. 1996) (rejecting an interpretation that renders a limitation meaninglessly empty).
Appellants have merely discovered a previously unappreciated property of a prior art composition, and this does not render the old composition patentably new to the discoverers. See Atlas Powder Co. v. Ireco, Inc., 190 F.3d 1342, 1347 (Fed. Cir. 1999). The claiming of an unknown property that is inherently present in the prior art does not make the present claims patentable. See In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252, 1254 (CCPA 1977).
However, we find the portions of the Specification (id.) cited by Appellants (App. Br. 2) do not identify a description of "a reason to exclude the relevant limitation." Santarus, Inc. v. Par Pharm., Inc., 694 F.3d 1344, 1351 (Fed. Cir. 2012) ("Negative claim limitations are adequately supported when the specification describes a reason to exclude the relevant limitation. Such written description support need not rise to the level of disclaimer. In fact, it is possible for the patentee to support both the inclusion and exclusion of the same material."). See also Manual of Patent Examination Procedure (MPEP) 2173.05(i) (9th Ed., Mar. 2014) ("Any negative limitation or exclusionary proviso must have basis in the original disclosure. The mere absence of a positive recitation is not basis for an exclusion").
In addition, as applied to apparatus claims 1 and 3—6, Appellants' arguments are unpersuasive because "apparatus claims cover what a device is, not what a device does." Toshiba Corp. v. Imation Corp., 681 F.3d 1358, 1369 (Fed. Cir. 2012) (quoting Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Bausch & Lomb, Inc., 909 F.2d 1464, 1469 (Fed. Cir. 1990)).
Thus, the final "wherein" clause is non-limiting — it describes a source of the mineral ions for the production of the claimed composition, rather than imparting any actual or apparently meaningful structural limitation to the claims themselves. MPEP 2110.04; see generally Griffin v. Berlina, 285 F.3d 1029, 1034 (Fed. Cir. 2002) (affirming interpretation that a wherein clause was limiting because it provided "meaning and purpose to the manipulative steps" of the claim).

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