Ex parte TANAKA et al. - Page 6




          Appeal No. 1998-0454                                       Page 6           
          Application No. 08/417,985                                                  


          of the other operating member is canceled by activation of the              
          TFDCO member” involves an unacceptable broadening of the                    
          claimed invention [answer-page 5].                                          


               Our review of the amended claim finds no such broadening               
          of the claim scope.  Any encompassing of “plural operational                
          states,” as the examiner calls it, is only a consequence of the             
          now amended claim language to point out that it is the                      
          transmission member which moves the trigger member and the                  
          trigger member operates the tape feeding direction change-over              
          mechanism and that the cancellation of the arresting condition              
          depends on whether one of the first and second operating                    
          members is advanced while the other operating member is                     
          arrested or the reel receiving elements stop with the other                 
          operating member being arrested.  We do not find that the                   
          further specification of the conditions under which certain                 
          actions take place constitutes a broadening of the claim scope.             


               Similarly, with new claim 4, while the examiner indicates              
          that the claim scope is broader than that of claim 1 in the                 
          original patent, because the claim now recites that the                     







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