Appeal No. 2002-0249
Application No. 09/321,390
Accordingly, we affirm only those Section 103 rejections for
substantially the reasons set forth in the Answer and below.
35 U.S.C. § 112, Second Paragraph
As the court stated in In re Moore, 439 F.2d 1232,
1235, 169 USPQ 236, 238 (CCPA 1971), the determination of whether
the claims of an application satisfy the requirements of the
second paragraph of Section 112 is
merely to determine whether the claims do, in fact, set
out and circumscribe a particular area with a
reasonable degree of precision and particularity. It
is here where the definiteness of 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 ours; footnote
omitted.]
The purpose of the second paragraph of Section 112 is to
basically insure, with a reasonable degree of particularity, an
adequate notification of the metes and bounds of what is being
claimed. See In re Hammack, 427 F.2d 1378, 1382, 166 USPQ 204,
208 (CCPA 1970).
Here, the examiner criticizes the use of the terminology
“the fuel gas” and “the processed fuel gas stream,” but does not
explain why one of ordinary skill in the art would not understand
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