Appeal No. 95-5103 Page 6
Application No. 08/074,303
Some latitude in the manner of expression and the aptness of
terms is permitted even though the claim language is not as
precise as the examiner might desire. If the scope of the
invention sought to be patented cannot be determined from the
language of the claims with a reasonable degree of certainty,
a rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, is appropriate.
Thus, the failure to provide explicit antecedent basis
for terms does not always render a claim indefinite. As
stated above, if the scope of a claim would be reasonably
ascertainable by those skilled in the art, then the claim is
not indefinite. See Ex parte Porter, 25 USPQ2d 1144, 1146
(Bd. Pat. App. & Inter. 1992).
With this as background, we turn to the specific
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, made by the
examiner of the claims on appeal. The examiner determined
(answer, p. 4) that
(1) There is no antecedent basis for "said first and
second enabled start buttons", claim 1 at lines 14-15.
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