Appeal No. 2006-3056 8
Application No. 10/278,769
reason, the examiner’s rejection of claim 1, and of claims 2 through 12 which depend
therefrom, will not be sustained.
We now turn to independent claim 13. This claim differs from claim 1 in that it has no
comparison function associated with the controller, i.e., wherein a total dose to be
delivered for the prescribed time period is determined on the basis of the basal rate and
interval rates, and then compared to a maximum dose for the prescribed time period
programmed by the medical professional. As written, claim 13 determines a total dose of
fluid medication to be delivered over the prescribed time period based on the basal rate
and interval rates, and then anomalously “adjusts said basal rate to maintain said total
dose.” The basis upon which said adjustment is made is not clear from the claim.
Dependent claim 14 sets forth the requirement that said total dose in claim 13 “equals said
maximum dose,” but there is no antecedent basis in claim 13 for a “maximum dose.” Thus,
in our view, claim 13 and the claims which depend therefrom are indefinite. For that
reason, we enter a NEW GROUND of rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.
As for the examiner’s rejection of claims 13 through 24 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b), we
emphasis again that those claims contain language which renders the subject matter
thereof vague and indefinite. Thus, we find that it is not reasonably possible to apply the
prior art relied upon by the examiner to those claims in deciding the question of
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