Appeal No. 2002-1698
Application No. 09/401,691
OPINION
We cannot sustain any of these rejections.
With respect to the section 112 rejection, the examiner has
enumerated several criticisms of the appealed claim language
which are believed by the examiner to render the claims
indefinite. However, for the reasons fully detailed by the
appellants on pages 7-9 of the brief and pages 3-4 of the reply
brief, the examiner’s belief is simply not well founded. When
the language of the claims is analyzed, as it must be, in light
of the teachings of the prior art and of the particular
application disclosure as it would be interpreted by one
possessing an ordinary level of skill in the pertinent art, it is
apparent that the appealed claims do, in fact, set out and
circumscribe a particular area with a reasonable degree of
precision and particularity in accordance with the second
paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112. See In re Moore, 439 F.2d 1232,
1235, 169 USPQ 236, 238 (CCPA 1971).
Under these circumstances, we cannot sustain the examiner’s
section 112, second paragraph, rejection of claims 12 and 13.
As for the section 102 rejection, we share the appellants’
fundamental position that Leising fails to disclose, either
expressly or inherently, the appealed independent claim 12
4
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