Appeal No. 97-2168
Application No. 08/382,120
“groups derived from carbohydrates containing
a pyranosyl or furanosyl ring”, and,
“mono- or bicyclic aromatic groups having 5 to
6 atoms in each ring”.
The inquiry under the second paragraph of § 112 is
whether the claims particularly point out and distinctly
claim what appellants consider as their invention. This
is essentially a requirement for precision and
definiteness of claim language. In addressing this
requirement, with respect to the two phrases, the
examiner states that
“Because of the vagueness of ‘derived from’ it is
unclear what does or does not fall within the R1
definition” (examiner’s answer, p. 2, lines 19-
20), and
“‘mono- or bicyclic aromatic groups having 5 to 6
atoms in each ring’. . . is [also] indefinite, in
that it introduces the open ended ‘groups’, which
is open ended as to any substituents which might
be present” (specification, p. 5, lines 17-21).
The “definiteness of the language employed must be
analyzed - not in a vacuum, but always in light of the
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