Court Opinion

ID: 9475157
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:18:34.517534+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:32.295417
License: Public Domain

PAULINE NEWMAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I join the court’s opinion, and agree that the dispositive issue is the breadth of the Queener claims. However, in view of Senior Judge Miller’s interpretation of precedent to hold that the last paragraph of section 112 is reasonably applied, in prosecution before the PTO, so that the claims need not distinguish from the prior art, I write separately to express my concern lest we reopen that closed book. It is now beyond debate that limitations from the specification will not, during examination before the PTO, be imputed to the claims in order to avoid prior art; such limitations must be specifically stated in the claims. The last paragraph of section 112 does not expand the second paragraph of section 112, which requires that the “claims particularly point[ ] out and distinctly claim[ ] the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention”. As stated in In re Lundberg, 244 F.2d 543, 548, 113 USPQ 530, 534 (CCPA 1957):
[Notwithstanding the [last] paragraph of section 112, it is the language itself of the claims which must particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention, without limitations imported from the specification, whether such language is couched in terms of means plus function or consists of a detailed recitation of the inventive matter.
This law has been consistently applied. See, e.g., In re Mulder, 716 F.2d 1542, 1549, 219 USPQ 189, 196 (Fed.Cir.1983); In re Sweet, 393 F.2d 837, 841-42, 157 USPQ 495, 499 (CCPA 1968); In re Margaroli, 318 F.2d 348, 351, 138 USPQ 158, 161 (CCPA 1963); In re Henatsch, 298 F.2d 954, 957-58, 132 USPQ 445, 448 (CCPA 1962); In re Arbeit, 206 F.2d 947, 958, 99 USPQ 123, 131-32 (CCPA 1953); Siegel v. Watson, 267 F.2d 621, 623, 121 USPQ 119, 121 (D.C.Cir.1959); Ex parte Roggenburk, 172 USPQ 82, 82-83 (Pat.Off.Bd. App.1970); Hoelscher v. Johnson, 122 USPQ 153, 156 (Pat. Off. Bd. Pat. Inter. 1956). *465As applied in reexamination, see In re Yamamoto, 740 F.2d 1569, 222 USPQ 934 (Fed.Cir.1984). See also P.J. Federico, Commentary on the New Patent Act, 35 U.S.C.A. at 26 (1954) (Section 112, last paragraph, “relates primarily to the construction of such claims for the purpose of determining when the claim is infringed ... and would not appear to have much, if any applicability in determining the patent-ability of such claims over the prior art, that is, the Patent Office is not authorized to allow a claim which 'reads on’ the prior art”).