Appeal No. 1999-1747 Page 14
Application No. 08/715,422
In addition, claim 11 lacks proper antecedent basis for
"the retaining ring" and "the shoulder." It appears to us
that "the retaining ring" is meant to refer back to the
resilient retaining element recited in claim 1. Additionally,
while claim 1 does recite "a shoulder," it is not "the
shoulder" being recited in claim 11. In that regard, the
shoulder being recited in claim 1 is either shoulder 40
(Figure 1) or shoulder 112 (Figure 5) while the shoulder being
recited in claim 11 is shoulder 114 (Figure 5).6
The rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 103
Considering now the rejections of claims 1 to 16 under
35 U.S.C. § 103, we have carefully considered the subject
matter defined by these claims. However, for reasons stated
supra in our new rejection under the second paragraph of
Section 112 entered under the provisions of 37 CFR 1.196(b),
the scope of the claims under appeal cannot be ascertained.
We find that it is not possible to apply the prior art to
claims 1 to 16 in deciding the question of obviousness under
6See pages 3-4 of the brief wherein the appellant reads
claims 1 and 11 on the drawings.
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