Appeal No. 1999-1488
Application 08/630,332
(ii) Claim 2 is inconsistent with its parent claim 1. Claim 1
recites that the medium "is fed from said hopper into a feed
passage and is discharged into said stacker," thus indicating
that the "feed passage" is between, and not a part of, the
hopper and the stacker; it then recites that a sensor means is
"provided in said feed passage." Claim 2, on the other hand,
recites that "said sensor [sic: sensor means] is provided at
least on [sic: in] any one of said hopper and stacker." This
recitation conflicts with claim 1, because in claim 1 the
sensor means is recited as being provided in the feed passage,
and the feed passage (as indicated in claim 1) is not in the
hopper or in the stacker. The scope of claim 2 therefore is
indefinite.
(iii) Claim 4 is indefinite in that, in its last three lines,
it recites that the controlling means controls the drive means
such that when the medium is located at the boundary of the
apparatus body and "any one of said hopper and stacker," the
locking portion "can" be engaged by said engaging portion. As
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