Appeal No. 96-2094
Application 08/282,783
to be equated with indefiniteness. See, for example, In re
Miller, 441 F.2d 689, 693, 169 USPQ 597, 600 (CCPA 1971).
As to the examiner’s concerns regarding terms such as
”the stroke start end” and “the stroke finish end” in claim
12, “a guide cam surface” in claims 6 and 12, and “a slot” in
claim 13, this basis for the rejection under § 112, second
paragraph, does not appear to come from any particular
difficulty with the terminology employed in the claims but,
instead, seems to be based upon the examiner’s opinion that
there may be no strict antecedent basis in the specification
and/or preceding claim language for the terms in question.
While we appreciate the examiner’s concerns in this regard, it
is our view that the minor inconsistencies in claim language
noted by the examiner are not such to prevent one of ordinary
skill in the art from understanding the metes and bounds of
independent claims 6, 12 and 13, or claim 2, 7 and 8 that
dependent from claim 12, especially when the claim language is
read in light of appellant’s specification as a whole.5
5Pursuant to 37 CFR § 1.75(d)(1), the examiner may wish
to have appellant amend the specification to provide
antecedent basis therein for any terms in the claims that the
examiner regards as lacking such support.
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