Appeal No. 97-3199
Application No. 08/273,767
appeal, this panel of the board has carefully considered
appellants’ specification and claims, the applied patents,3
and the respective viewpoints of appellants and the examiner.
As a consequence of our review, we make the determinations
which follow.
The indefiniteness issue
We reverse the rejection of claims 2 and 3 under 35
U.S.C.
§ 112, second paragraph.
As pointed out by the examiner (main answer, page 4), the
copy of claim 2 in the appendix to the main brief is in error.
Therefore, we refer to this claim as it appears in the
appendix attached to the reply brief (Paper No. 16).
As perceived by the examiner, it is not clear what is
being set forth by the language “each of said openings has an
3In our evaluation of the applied patents, we have
considered all of the disclosure thereof for what it would
have fairly taught one of ordinary skill in the art. See In
re Boe, 355 F.2d 961, 965, 148 USPQ 507, 510 (CCPA 1966).
Additionally, this panel of the board has taken into account
not only the specific teachings, but also the inferences which
one skilled in the art would reasonably have been expected to
draw from the disclosure. See In re Preda 401 F.2d 825, 826,
159 USPQ 342, 344 (CCPA 1968).
4
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