Appeal No. 2003-1725
Application No. 09/357,645 Page 8
Here, the examiner has not fairly established that the
recitations referred to result in a violation of the definiteness
requirements of § 112, second paragraph for substantially the
reasons as stated by appellants (substitute brief, pages 13-16.
In that regard, we note that the examiner has the burden of
presenting a prima facie case of indefiniteness. This, the
examiner has not accomplished with the questions and conclusions
presented. Those comments merely suggest that the examiner
questions the claim meaning without providing the requisite
detailed analysis establishing that the metes and bounds of the
so rejected claims are not ascertainable.
Alleged Relative Terms
The examiner opines that the terms, “essentially non-
compliant,” “essentially perpendicular” and “substantially
linear” are indefinite. It is apparently the examiner’s view
that the use of such terms without the provision of a standard or
definition for those terms in the specification results in claims
of unascertainable scope, especially in light of alleged “ill-
defined forces” in combination with those terms.
We do not subscribe to the examiner’s viewpoint. Here, the
examiner has not fairly carried the burden of establishing that
the claim language, as it would have been interpreted by one of
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