Appeal No. 1995-1703
Application 07/897,304
For the reasons discussed above, the examiner’s concerns
regarding the appellants’ disclosure are not well founded.
Thus, the § 112, second paragraph, rejection is unsound to the
degree that it is predicated on these concerns. As correctly
pointed out by the examiner, however, the references to “the
outer tubing” in claim 1 do lack a proper antecedent basis.
The appellants have not challenged the examiner’s
determination that this inconsistency renders the scope of
claim 1, and by implication the scope of the claims depending
therefrom, indefinite.
Therefore, we shall sustain the standing 35 U.S.C. § 112,
second paragraph, rejection of claim 1, and of claims 2 and 4
through 14 which depend therefrom, but only on the basis of
the antecedent problem in claim 1. We shall not sustain the
standing 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, rejection of
claims 15 and 18 through 21.
In summary, the decision of the examiner:
a) to reject claim 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first
paragraph, as being based on a specification which as
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