Appeal No. 2001-2454 Page 5
Application No. 09/267,355
via an engine braking system including an automatic braking controller when the turbine
is to be used as a braking device. According to the claim there is a first change-over
element to provide a change-over between the automatic turbine controller and the
engine braking system, and a second change-over element operative to provide a
change-over between the automatic brake controller and “the brake operating device”
(emphasis added). However, there is no antecedent for this element, and thus one is at
a loss to determine what it is or what is its relationship to the other components of the
invention. Reference to the specification does not supply answers to these questions.
This matter in and of itself renders claim 1 indefinite, and along with it claims 2-17,
which depend from claim 1.
Immediately thereafter claim 1 states “whereby a manual braking signal is
generatable in a manually adjustable brake operating device and is suppliable to the
engine braking system, and the manual braking signal is compared with a rotational-
speed-dependent braking limit value.” The “manually adjustable brake operating
device” is not more specifically described in the claim, and therefore the above-quoted
language appears to be broad enough to read on any manually adjustable braking
device, including the driver’s foot-operated service brakes that normally are present in
every vehicle of the type to which this invention is directed. The problem with this
recitation resides in the fact that the specification doesn’t support an interpretation of
the claims that is this broad, and therefore the claims do not describe the invention with
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