Appeal No. 2003-1725
Application No. 09/357,645 Page 9
ordinary skill in the art in light of appellants’ specification
and the prior art would have been indefinite within the meaning
of § 112, second paragraph. In this regard and for reasons
stated above and in the briefs, we do not find that the claims
include ill-defined forces as alleged by the examiner. Thus, to
the extent that the examiner is relying on alleged ill-defined
forces to buttress the examiner’s position, such reliance is not
persuasive. Moreover, appellants have furnished detailed
arguments and references to their specification (supplemental
brief, pages 15-20) explaining why one of ordinary skill in the
art would have been reasonably apprised of the claim scope. The
examiner’s conclusary comment at page 13 of the answer does not
serve to rebut those arguments. The examiner simply has not
satisfactorily explained why one of ordinary skill in the art
would not find those “relative” terms reasonably precise as they
relate to the properties of the occluding member, the
construction and positioning of the force actuator relative to
the occluding member and the orientation of the occluding member
relative to the wall of a tube to be occluded. Certainly, the
examiner has not furnished any evidence indicating that more
precision than the language employed in the claims is necessary
to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter
Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007