Appeal No. 96-3999 Page 7
Application No. 08/395,719
said tubular mouth member in threaded engagement therewith and
with said skirt portion extending down over said tubular mouth
member, and in which the outer diameter of the annular skirt
portion of said cover and the inner diameter of the well are
selected to enable the first container to be stacked over the
second container in a close fitting sliding interlocking
relationship."
Our review of independent claim 1 reveals that we are unable
to derive a proper understanding of the scope and content
thereof. Specifically, it is our determination that claim 1 is
subject to two interpretations: one interpretation would support
the examiner's rejection of claim 1 as being anticipated by
Bourcart and the other interpretation would not support the
examiner's rejection of claim 1 as being anticipated by Bourcart.
The first interpretation is that the claim is directed to a first
container adapted to stack with another container wherein the
covers of the two containers may have different diameters. The
second interpretation is that the claim is directed to a first
container adapted to stack with another container wherein both
containers must have covers with the same diameter. Since we are
unable to derive a proper understanding of the scope and content
of claim 1, we believe that the proper course of action is to
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