Posts Tagged: "In re Chudik"

The Federal Circuit noted that precedent requires a prior art reference to disclose the invention without modification in order to anticipate. “[A] prior art reference that must be distorted from its obvious design does not anticipate a patent claim.” The Court applied that principle here and found that the first reference (Rambert) would only anticipate if one of its elements was removed. The Board failed to explain the removal of that element. The second reference (Bouttens) also required “significant and impermissible modification,” which was also unexplained. Consequently, the Board’s conclusions were not supported by substantial evidence.