Appeal No. 97-1033
Application 08/190,485
The indefiniteness issue
We are constrained to affirm the rejection of appel-
lant’s claims 1 through 3 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second para-
graph, in light of appellant’s concession regarding the propriety
thereof (brief, page 3).
The anticipation issue
We reverse the rejection of appellant’s claims under
35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
Selected method claim 4 requires, inter alia, a single
operator performing the applying of vacuum or air pressure, with
said (single) operator also observing distance indicated on a
measurement device.5
A reading of the Schuh document reveals to us an
absence of any indication whatsoever by the patentee as to the
number of operators that operate the bearing clearance detector
with the specified equipment on the auxiliary cart (column 3,
lines 1 through 4). There clearly is uncertainty from the
5 Akin to the noted limitation in selected claim 4, we
particularly make reference to a comparable single operator
limitation in indefinite claim 1, i.e., the operator of incre-
mental application means also observes the distance measuring
device connected to the detector.
4
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