Appeal No. 1997-1081 Page 8
Application No. 08/111,922
of the subject matter for which protection is sought. As
noted by the Court in In re Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210, 160 USPQ
226 (CCPA 1971), a claim may not be rejected solely because of
the type of language used to define the subject matter for
which patent protection is sought.
With this as background, we are unable to sustain any of
the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, made
by the examiner (answer, p. 3) of the claims on appeal. We 7
agree with the argument set forth by the appellants (brief,
pp. 9-10) that the claim language found by the examiner to be
in violation of the second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112 is
definite since such language does define the metes and bounds
thereof with a reasonable degree of precision and
particularity. See In re Venezia, 530 F.2d 956, 958, 189 USPQ
149, 151 (CCPA 1976).
7While we cannot sustain the examiner's basis for
rejecting the claims under appeal, we suggest the following
corrections to claims 7 and 8. Claim 7, line 2, change
"further comprising" to --in combination with--. Claim 8,
line 4, change "the sleeve" to --the fishing jacket means--.
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