Appeal No. 1996-1783
Application No. 08/195,025
112, second paragraph, as being indefinite (Answer, page 4). 2
Claims 20 through 37 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Meybeck or Fujiwara or Handjani in view of
Tin and/or Popescu and Gaonkar (Answer, page 5). We reverse
all of the rejections on appeal for reasons which follow.
OPINION
A. The Rejection under § 112, Second Paragraph
The examiner states that “[i]t is unclear as to what
appellant intends to convey, by ‘when present, a fatty phase’
in claim 20.” (Answer, page 4). The examiner rebutted
appellants’ argument that the specification discloses the
2The examiner has withdrawn the rejection of the “rest of
the 112 rejections, both the first and second paragraph
rejections based on other issues and as applied to claims 26-
37," i.e., the only rejections under § 112, paragraph one and
two, repeated by the examiner in the Answer were based on the
phrase “when present, a fatty phase” as recited in claims 20-
25 (Answer, page 2). Although not explicitly stated by the
examiner, the withdrawal of these rejections was apparently in
response to the amendment dated May 19, 1995, Paper No. 8,
amending claim 26 and cancelling claim 38. Furthermore, in
response to the amendment accompanying the Reply Brief (Paper
No. 14, dated Feb. 21, 1996), the examiner has withdrawn the
entire rejection under § 112, first paragraph (Letter dated
Mar. 13, 1996, Paper No. 17). Accordingly, the only remaining
rejection on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 112 is the
rejection of claims 20-25 under the second paragraph of § 112.
4
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007