Appeal No. 1996-1288 Application No. 08/227,576 Claim 24 is rejected under the second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112 for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the appellants regard as their invention. According to the examiner, “[i]n claim 24, the word ‘stoichiometric’ implies a chemical reaction, but it is unclear what the reaction is” (answer, page 4). Finally, claims 2 through 6, 8 through 17, 19, 21 through 25 and 27 through 32 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as3 being unpatentable over Brunnmueller in view of Connelly and Bodenbenner. For the reasons which follow, we cannot sustain any of the above noted rejections. The examiner has not clearly identified whether his section 112, first paragraph, rejection is based upon an enablement theory or a description theory. Although his criticisms seem more closely related to the latter, the 3Claims 21, 23 and 24 inappropriately depend from now cancelled claim 20. In accordance with the appellants’ indication on page 2 of the brief, we will treat these claims as though they depend from claim 31 for purposes of resolving the issues before us on this appeal. However, in any further prosection that may occur, the inappropriate dependency of claims 21, 23 and 24 should be corrected. 4Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 NextLast modified: November 3, 2007