Appeal No. 2004-0136 Page 10
Application No. 09/761,340
New Rejection By This Panel of The Board
Pursuant to our authority under 37 CFR §1.196(b), we enter the following new
rejection:
Claims 57-61 are 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
the appellants regard as the invention.
Claim 57 recites “a tension adjustment member connected to the cable members
for altering the length of said cable members, to provide more or less forward-lean of
the boot relative to a vertical line.” As explained on pages 13 and 14 of the appellants’
specification and illustrated in Figures 13-16, tension cable 126 passes through one of a
number of apertures in an engagement member 122. Moving member 122 from the
position shown in Figure 16 to that shown in Figure 3 places tension upon cable 126,
which results in forward lean applied to the rear portion of the boot. Although the
phrase “for altering the length of the cable” appears in claim 57 as originally filed, there
is no explanation in the specification regarding such a feature and no description of a
length altering mechanism, and it does not appear from the drawings that such actually
occurs. While it is the operation of the tension adjustment member acting upon the
cable which results in the application of forward lean in the invention as disclosed, such
does not occur because the length of the cable is altered. The invention therefore is
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