Appeal No. 97-1493
Application 08/429,806
The second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112 requires claims to set
out and circumscribe a particular area with a reasonable degree
of precision and particularity. In re Johnson, 558 F.2d 1008,
1015, 194 USPQ 187, 193 (CCPA 1977). In determining whether this
standard is met, the definiteness of the language employed in the
claims must be analyzed, not in a vacuum, but always in light of
the teachings of the prior art and of the particular application
disclosure as it would be interpreted by one possessing the
ordinary level of skill in the pertinent art. Id.
The examiner has advanced a number of reasons why the
subject matter recited in claims 12 through 19 is indefinite (see
pages 3 and 4 in the final rejection). The one relating to the
recitation in claim 12 of the “means for changing the pressure of
the fluid from a first pressure when the carrier is stationary to
a second pressure . . . when the carrier is transported” is well
taken given the above noted lack of any enlightening support for
this limitation in the appellant’s disclosure. The examiner’s
other stated concerns, while perhaps indicative of somewhat
unartful claim draftsmanship, are not serious enough to render
the claimed subject matter indefinite. With specific regard to
the alleged conflict between the preamble and body of claim 12
(see pages 3 and 4 in the final rejection), the preamble does not
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