Appeal No. 97-1754
Application 08/462,133
lack of a strict antecedent. Finally, as to the examiner’s
contention that lines 9 and 37 of claim 3 are confusing,
appellants have not disputed the examiner’s position in this
regard. Rather, appellants merely state on page 1 of the
reply brief that typographical errors appear in these lines,
and that correction thereof would render the meaning of the
claim clear. Since appellants have not disputed the
examiner’s position with respect to lines 9 and 37, we will
summarily sustain the examiner’s position that the meaning of
lines 9 and 37 in claim 3 is not clear.
We now turn our attention to our own difficulties in
understanding the meaning of claims 2 and 3. Considering
first claim 2, lines 19-23 set forth “article group transfer
means
. . . for advancement downstream” and lines 23-28 set forth
“means for transferring . . . to said outbound accumulator
means.” In that the disclosed reciprocating transfer head 24
appears to perform both the function called for in the
“article group transfer means” limitation and the function
called for in the “means for transferring” limitation, it is
12
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