Appeal No. 1996-3386
Application No. 08/136,123
20, filed January 29, 1996) for appellants' arguments
thereagainst.
OPINION
We have carefully considered the claims, the applied
prior art references, and the respective positions articulated
by appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our
review, we will affirm the indefiniteness rejections of claims
1 through 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, and
reverse the obviousness rejections of claims 1 through 4, 6
through 9, 18, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
The examiner first questions how "a first conductive
passage" can comprise "a plurality of parallel and conductive
passages." This language appears in claims 1, 2, and 4.
Similar language appears in claim 3 as "each" conductive
passage (a single passage) comprises "a plurality of parallel
and conductive passages." Although we believe that we
understand what is meant, we agree with the examiner that it
is confusing to recite a singular element comprising a
plurality of the same element.
The examiner further asserts that "opposed slant side
surfaces" in line 12 of claim 1 lacks antecedent basis. Since
4
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