Appeal No. 1997-1218
Application No. 08/268,687
1971), whether the claims of an application satisfy the
requirements of the second paragraph of § 112 depends on a
determination as to
whether the claims do, in fact, set out and circum-
scribe a particular area with a reasonable degree of
precision and particularity. It is here where the
definiteness of the language employed must be
analyzed -- not in a vacuum, but always in light of
the teachings of the prior art and of the particular
application disclosure as it would be interpreted
by one possessing the ordinary level of skill in the
pertinent art. (emphasis added)
Basically, the examiner has overlooked these fundamental
principles of law in setting forth his stated rejection of the
appealed claims herein under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph. As an example, the examiner contends that in
appealed claim 14, line 9, the expression ">>" is indefinite
as to its meaning.
However, as appellants point out in their brief at page 6,
this term ">>" is a recognized scientific symbol which means
"much greater". Indeed, in context, what the claimed
invention requires and defines is the use of a solid mixer
having a Froude number as defined by the equation in claim 14.
The examiner has simply not met his initial burden of
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