Appeal No. 1997-2194 Page 6
Application No. 08/195,018
by one possessing the ordinary level of skill in the pertinent
art. Id.
The examiner's focus during examination of claims for
compliance with the requirement for definiteness of 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, second paragraph, is whether the claims meet the
threshold requirements of clarity and precision, not whether
more suitable language or modes of expression are available.
Some latitude in the manner of expression and the aptness of
terms is permitted even though the claim language is not as
precise as the examiner might desire. If the scope of the
invention sought to be patented can 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 inappropriate.
With this as background, we turn to the specific
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, made by the
examiner of the claims on appeal. In the answer (p. 7), the
examiner determined that claims 1 to 3 were indefinite since
the claimed range of surface tension for wetting (i.e.,
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