Appeal No. 1997-0440
Application No. 08/582,237
invention sought to be patented cannot be determined from the
language of the claims with a reasonable degree of certainty,
a rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, is appropriate.
Thus, the failure to provide explicit antecedent basis
for terms does not always render a claim indefinite. As
stated above, if the scope of a claim would be reasonably
ascertainable
by those skilled in the art, then the claim is not indefinite.
See Ex parte Porter, 25 USPQ2d 1144, 1146 (Bd. Pat. App. &
Int. 1992).
Furthermore, Appellant may use functional language,
alternative expressions, negative limitations, or any style of
expression or format of claim which makes clear the boundaries
of the subject matter for which protection is sought. As
noted by the court in In re Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210, 213, 169
USPQ 226, 229 (CCPA 1971), a claim may not be rejected solely
because of the type of language used to define the subject
matter for which patent protection is sought.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102
We note that a prior art reference anticipates the
subject of a claim when the reference discloses every feature
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