Appeal No. 98-2783
Application 08/450,009
that which appellants regard as their invention. With regard to claim
1, the examiner seems to be of the view that the structure of the
prosthetic device recited in the claim is indefinite because the
language “each of the first and second wire segments runs
longitudinally along the wire frame and
through the interconnected cells” is unclear and conflicts with the
recitations in, for example, dependent claims 4 and 5, which indicate
that the first and second wire segments run in a “helical direction.”
On page 6 of their brief, appellants urge that claim 1 “merely refers
to a pair of wire segments which all parts of wire segments run
longitudinally along the wire frame.” Like the examiner, we find
appellants’ language noted above in claim 1 to be unclear and
indefinite, especially in light of appellants’ argument on page 6 of
their brief and in the paragraph bridging pages 4 and 5 of the brief
where appellants attempt to distinguish the claimed prosthetic device
from that of Hillstead based on the language questioned by the
examiner.
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