Appeal No. 1998-3207 Page 7
Application No. 08/518,874
a rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, is appropriate.
Furthermore, appellants 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, 160 USPQ
226 (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.
With this as background, we have reviewed the specific
objections under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, made by
the examiner of the claims on appeal (answer, pp. 5-7). After
conducting this review, we find ourselves in agreement with
the position set forth by the appellants in the briefs that
the claims under appeal are not indefinite for the reasons set
forth by the examiner. Clearly the claimed apparatus is
intended "for injection molding a liquid into a plurality of
cells in a plate for solidification therein" since the
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