Appeal No. 96-1943
Application No. 08/147,008
invention is. By statute, 35 U.S.C. § 112, Congress
has placed no limitations on how an applicant claims
his invention, so long as the specification
concludes with claims which particularly point out
and distinctly claim that invention.
It is also the examiner's position that claim 12 is drawn
to a catalog of unconnected elements. We are at a loss to
understand such a contention inasmuch as this claim further
defines the mechanism for selectively applying a braking force
as one which includes "a computer and computer controlled
brakes." Apparently the examiner believes that specific
structure to actuate the brakes must be claimed (see answer,
page 5). Such a criticism, however, again goes to the breadth
of the claim and, as we have noted above, just because a claim
is broad does not mean that it is indefinite.
The examiner also criticizes (1) the "inferential"
recitation of an end effector in the "wherein" clause of claim
1, (2) the "adapted to" results set forth in claims 2-4, 7,
11, 14, 15, 43, 57 and 59 and (3) the functional recitations
set forth in claim 9 because, in the examiner's view, these
claims set forth insufficient structure to produce the claimed
results. Once again we note that just because a claim is
broad does not mean that it is indefinite. Moreover, as the
12
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