Appeal No. 97-4252 Page 9
Application No. 08/226,520
Claims 1, 4, 5, 7 and 8
As pointed above, when substantial confusion exists as to
the interpretation of a claim and no reasonably definite
meaning can be ascribed to the terms in a claim, a
determination as to patentability under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph, would not be made. However, in this instance, with
respect to claims 1, 4, 5, 7 and 8 we consider it to be
desirable to avoid the inefficiency of piecemeal appellate
review. See Ex parte Ionescu, 222 USPQ 537 (Bd. App. 1984).
For the purposes of this appeal, we construe appellant's
claimed "lighting control means" as covering at least the
specie of Figure 2 (e.g., battery 6, switch 11 and electric
circuits 5 and 5') or the specie of Figure 7 (e.g., a servo-
motor and circuitry described in the paragraph bridging pages
8 and 9) and equivalents thereof.
The examiner determined (final rejection, p. 2) that the
claims under appeal were nonenabled because
[t]he applicant does not specifically teach how the
circuitry 5 and 5' and/or the specifics of the hanging
weight or gyro controls the lighting of the plurality of
luminous devices 2 according to the time T and/or the
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