Appeal No. 2000-0503 Page 3
Application No. 08/902,031
1. Claims 1, 48, 49, 51-58, 60, 61, 63-71, 73, 74, 76-84, 86, 87, 90-96, 98, 99, 102-109,
111, 112, 114-122, 124, 125, 127-132, 134, 135, 137-146, 148, 149 and 152-156 stand
rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Toth.
2. Claims 47, 50, 59, 62, 72, 75, 85, 88, 97, 100, 110, 113, 123, 126, 133, 136, 147 and
150 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over Toth, as applied above,
and further in view of Gerhard.
Reference is made to the brief and reply brief (Paper Nos. 9 and 11) and the final
rejection and answer (Paper Nos. 7 and 10) for the respective positions of the appellants and
the examiner with regard to the merits of these rejections.
OPINION
In arriving at our decision on the obviousness issues raised in this appeal, we have
given careful consideration to the appellants' specification and claims, the teachings of the
applied prior art references, the evidence supplied by appellants, and the respective positions
articulated by appellants and the examiner. Having reviewed all of the evidence before us, we
make the determinations which follow.
Turning first to independent claims 1, 58 and 70, for the reasons stated in our new
ground of rejection, infra, under the second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112 entered under the
provisions of 37 CFR § 1.196(b), no reasonably definite meaning can be ascribed to certain
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