Appeal No. 2002-1590 Page 2
Application No. 09/511,516
as would occur in a frontal collision. Independent claims 1, 9
and 17 are representative of the subject matter on appeal and a
copy of those claims can be found in the Appendix to appellants’
brief.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the
examiner in rejecting the appealed claims are:
Cannon 3,011,655 Dec. 5, 1961
Laue 4,901,426 Feb. 20, 1990
Okuhara et al. (Okuhara) 6,109,164 Aug. 29, 2000
(filed May 1, 1998)
Hjerpe WO99/60457 Nov. 25, 1999
Claims 1 through 8 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly
point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which
appellants regard as their invention. According to the examiner,
Claim 1 was amended to recite that the control mechanism is
released “independently of a force applied” to the push rod;
however, this is inaccurate since the control mechanism is
released upon deceleration which itself causes a force to be
applied to the push rod. (answer, page 3).
Claims 1, 2, 9 through 12 and 17 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 102(a) as being anticipated by Hjerpe (Figure 1).
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