Appeal No. 95-5103 Page 7
Application No. 08/074,303
(2) Claim 1 is incomplete because the necessary
structural cooperative relationship of the elements is
omitted; MPEP 706.03(f) . In particular, the depressible[3]
start buttons and the means for enabling need not be
[sic, are not] related in any fashion to the rest of the
apparatus. Lines 13-15 of claim 1 merely requires that
the regulators are capable of working when the start
buttons are depressed.
The appellant argues (brief, pp. 3-5) that the examiner's
reasons for rejecting claim 1 as being indefinite are in
error. We agree. In our view, the examiner has not met his
burden of pointing out specifically how claim 1 fails to
define the metes and bounds of the claimed invention with a
reasonable degree of precision and particularity. In that
regard, it is our opinion that an artisan would know that the
phrase "said first and second enabled start buttons" is
referring back to the first and second depressible start
buttons previously claimed which have been enabled by the
previously claimed "means for enabling said first and second
depressible start buttons." In addition, we see no basis for
rejecting claim 1 as being incomplete since the mere breadth
3Section 706.03(f) was deleted from the MPEP in September
1995 (6th Edition, Revision 1).
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007