Appeal No. 1996-2163
Application 08/106,541
comprises a mouth. Furthermore, the language “the acoustical antenna comprises means
to the transducer in interacting with surrounding medium” is indefinite and does not recite
what appellant appears to intend as reflected at pages 2 and 3 of the second Reply Brief.
There, appellant indicates that he intends the language to recite the means to mount the
transducer and to interact with the surrounding medium. Clearly, there is some function or
coupling that has not been recited in this claim. This defect is repeated in claims 23, 24
and 26. In claim 24 there is no recited “the brass instrument” but the claim correctly recites
“a brass instrument.” We agree with the examiner that in claim 26 the language “an end in
mounting an ultrasonic drive” is indefinite. Likewise “the opening rim of the antenna body”
is indefinite because there has not been established in this independent claim that there is
any opening rim in any antenna body or any other portion of that claim. The same may be
said of “the mouth” at the end of dependent claim 28 on appeal. Therefore, the decision
of the examiner rejecting claims 21, 23, 24 and 26-28 under the second paragraph of 35
USC § 112 is sustained. The rejection of claims 17-20, 22, 25 and 29-32 is reversed.
Before we turn to the individual art rejections, we observe that appellant’s written
description in the specification continually describes the serrated edges as being “rolled
back.” The drawings, however, in this CIP application do not show well that the serrated
edges are rolled back. The best showing appears to be the depictions in appellant’s prior
patent entitled “Serrated-Rolled Edge for Microwave Antennas,” U.S. Patent 5, 298, 911
issued on March 29, 1994, as the best way of illustrating appellant’s serrated and rolled
back edges. It appears to us that a rolled back edge flares back upon itself, that is, the
serrated surface must change direction and tend to roll back towards the origin of the flare
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