Appeal No. 1997-4000
Application 08/319,004
Accordingly, we shall sustain the standing 35 U.S.C. §
112, second paragraph, rejection of claims 1 through 8.
In situations where the scope of claims is indefinite, we
normally would not evaluate the substance of any prior art
rejection since to do so would require speculative assumption
as to the meaning of the claims. See In re Steele, 305 F.2d
859, 862-63, 134 USPQ 292, 295 (CCPA 1962). Nonetheless, in
order to forestall piecemeal prosecution of the instant
application we shall review the standing prior art rejections
of the appealed claims giving the term “standard” as it
appears in the claims its ordinary and accustomed meaning,
i.e., well established and very familiar. Also, our review 3
of the appellants’ disclosure indicates that the recitations
in claims 1, 2 and 7 that the metal insert is shaped to the
configuration of a standard golf club head (claim 1), 7-iron
(claim 2) or golf club (claim 7) are not literally correct.
Given the content of specification pages 6 and 7 and drawing
Figures 2 through 4, we understand these recitations as
meaning that the metal insert has a configuration consistent
3 Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary (G. & C. Merriam Co.
1977).
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007