Opinion ID: 427227
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Claim Construction--The Claims

Text: 29 Significant evidence of the scope of a particular claim can be found on review of other claims. General Electric v. United States, supra, 572 F.2d at 752, 198 USPQ at 70. Here, claim 5 (not asserted) limits the layer described in claim 1 to an aluminosilicate structure in the nature of a zeolite molecular sieve, i.e., to Fromson's theory of what is formed. In Kalman v. Kimberly-Clark Corp., supra, 713 F.2d at 770, 218 USPQ at 788, this court said where some claims are broad and others narrow, the narrow claim limitations cannot be read into the broad whether to avoid invalidity or to escape infringement. Accord, Environmental Designs, Ltd. v. Union Oil Co. of California, 713 F.2d 693, 699, 218 USPQ 865, 871 (Fed.Cir.1983); Caterpillar Tractor Co. v. Berco, S.P.A., 714 F.2d 1110, 1115, 219 USPQ 185, 188 (Fed.Cir.1983). The aluminosilicate limitation of narrow claim 5 cannot, therefore, be read into broader claim 1. 30 Advance and its customers argue that, had appellant originally sought product by process claims, those claims would have been disallowed because each claimed element would have been old, citing the district court's finding 18 containing combination of old element terminology. This argument is without merit. First, it is a hypothetical. That a process limitation appears in a claim does not convert it to a product by process claim. Second, there is no basis for treating combinations of old elements differently in determining patentability. The analysis under 35 U.S.C. Sec. 103 for any claimed invention requires a legal determination of whether the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time it was made. See, e.g., Environmental Designs, Ltd. v. Union Oil of California, supra; Stratoflex, Inc. v. Aeroquip Corp., 713 F.2d 1530, 218 USPQ 271 (Fed.Cir.1983).