Appeal No. 95-4636
Application 08/027,868
Opinion
We do not sustain any of the examiner’s grounds of
rejections of the appellants' claims 6-20 over prior art. We
sustain the rejection of claims 6-20 as being indefinite.
The rejection for indefiniteness
under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph
The examiner is correct that the term "said telephone
line" in claim 6 is without antecedent basis. Although the
problem is easily correctable, it does render the claimed
subject matter vague and indefinite because that which is
referred to does not exist. The appellants indicate that they
intend to amend the language to refer instead to "said
telephone system" if the claim is otherwise allowable. In our
view, if so amended, the problem would be corrected. However,
before us is the claim in its present form. Accordingly, we
sustain the rejection of claim 6 as being indefinite under 35
U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.
The examiner regards claim 7 as indefinite because it
does not recite any means for selecting a communication
channel and because it is not clear between what entities does
the communication channel exist. Claim 7 depends from claim 6
and reads as follows:
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