Appeal No. 2002-0950 Page 4
Application No. 09/655,147
respective positions articulated by the appellant and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
The indefiniteness rejection
The legal standard for definiteness is whether a claim reasonably apprises those
of skill in the art of its scope. See In re Warmerdam, 33 F.3d 1354, 1361, 31 USPQ2d
1754, 1759 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
The examiner offers two bases for the indefiniteness rejection (see page 3 of the
answer). The first is that the phrase “terminating at a clearance location therefrom” is
unclear because it cannot be determined what “therefrom” refers to and because it is
unclear what a “clearance location” is. The second basis is that there is no antecedent
basis for “said underlying operative positions.” For the reasons which follow, we share
the examiner’s view that these phrases render the scope of the claim indefinite.
Appellant offers an explanation of the terminology “clearance location” on pages
6 and 7 of the brief. According to this explanation, the “clearance location” refers to the
fact that the inclined top and bottom edges of the flaps stop short of a theoretical point
of intersection of their converging relation (see the drawing on page 6 of the brief). We
are not aware of a conventional definition of “clearance location” which connotes the
meaning set forth in this explanation and appellant has not presented any evidence that
“clearance location” would be so understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The only
mention of the term “clearance” in appellant’s underlying disclosure refers to the
clearance 50 between the initial length portions 44 of the edges 42 of the flaps and the
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