Court Opinion

ID: 9456320
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:48:55.31972+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:55.873343
License: Public Domain

RICH, Judge
(dissenting in part).
I agree with Judge Lane that claim 12 is not anticipated by Levy.
The majority opinion sets forth claim 12 and says, “As to claim 12, we are satisfied that Levy is an anticipation for the reasons of the examiner as quoted above.” Reference is made to the quotation from the examiner. I will explain why I disagree with the examiner.
“Anticipation,” of course, requires that each and every limitation of a claim is met by the disclosure of the reference (Levy). The majority opinion contains the Levy drawing. Where no special meaning has been given to terms of a claim by an applicant, the words are to be given their common meaning in the context of the specification.
Judge Lane has found that the term “cover” in claim 12 finds no counterpart in Levy, and I agree. Certainly a pipe nipple (32), open at both ends, is not a “cover” in any sense of the word but that was the examiner’s contention, agreed to by the majority. But I go further.
Judge Lane has reproduced appellant’s Fig. 2, to which his claim 12 is directed. In Fig. 2, the furnace (melt container) wall is 12, the “tunnel in the wall thereof” is 15, the “cover” is everything to the right of the x-y line except the thermocouple and its sheath. It is held in place by bolts 30. Claim 12 requires that the thermocouple — the “temperature sensing device” — have
* * * a portion adapted to be inserted within said melt said portion being disposed entirely within and surrounded by said tunnel * * *. [My emphasis.]
What this means is clear from Fig. 2. Thermocouple 16, 18 (which looks just like Levy’s) is located in bore 22 in sheath 21, the conical front end of which is “disposed entirely within and surrounded by” tunnel 15. That is the “portion” of the thermocouple which is “inserted within said melt.” A thermocouple of this type in a tube measures temperature at its front end, as appellant makes clear, because that is where the “hot junction” is. See 17 in Fig. 1, majority opinion.
It is as plain as it can possibly be from Levy’s Fig. 1 that the “portion” of his thermocouple 20 that is “inserted within said melt” is — as is the ease with appellant — its front end portion extending outwardly from the back wall 18 of the muffle (furnace), particularly the “free end 22 of the tube 21.” Claim 12 cannot be read on, and hence is not anticipated by, Levy because that portion, which is “inserted within said melt” is not “disposed entirely within and surrounded by said tunnel” (my emphasis) as claim 12 requires. It isn’t in a tunnel at all.
The examiner construes aligned openings 26, 27 in the furnace walls 13, 18 to be the “tunnel” of claim 12. The whole tenor of the application shows that a tunnel is a place into which molten metal can flow. No metal will get into the hole 26 and the examiner appears to concede as much. That leaves only hole 27 to be construed as “tunnel.” Levy teaches that “the opening 27 around the tube 21 is closed and sealed with a refractory insulation which hardens under the high operating temperatures of the furnace and holds the tube securely in the furnace wall.” Thus, Levy preferably has no tunnel, which is another reason claim 12 is not anticipated.
*594But even assuming omission of the sealant in hole 27, and regarding it as a “tunnel,” only by regarding the very short segment of Levy’s tube 21 which lies between the two faces of wall 18 as the “portion adapted to be inserted within said melt” can the examiner sustain his position. But this is to distort the meaning of the claim since the portion intended to extend into the melt is the whole thermocouple to the left of wall 18, in particular, the front end where temperature measurement actually takes place. A segment on the center portion of the protecting tube would not measure temperature.
By no proper construction of claim 12 can it be made to read on Levy, it is therefore not anticipated, and its rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102 should be reversed.