Appeal No. 1999-0718
Application 08/594,149
distinctly claim that which appellant regards as the inven-
tion.
Turning to the examiner's rejections of the appealed
claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) and § 103, we emphasize again
that these claims contain unclear language which renders the
subject matter thereof indefinite for reasons stated supra as
part of our new ground of rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph. Accordingly, we find that it is not possi-
ble to apply
the prior art relied upon by the examiner to these claims in
deciding the question of anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
and obviousness under § 103 without resorting to considerable
speculation and conjecture as to the meaning of the questioned
limitations in the claims. This being the case, we are con-
strained to reverse the examiner's rejections of the appealed
claims in light of the holding in In re Steele, 305 F.2d 859,
134 USPQ 292 (CCPA 1962). We hasten to add that this reversal
of the examiner's rejections is not based on the merits of the
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