Appeal No. 1996-3214 Page 10
Application No. 08/195,897
ultimately depend. In addition, claim 18 is internally
inconsistent in describing hexahaloplatinic acid as being
identical with potassium hexachloroplatinate, a salt. The
latter inconsistency further confuses the meaning of the claim
language as it would be construed by one of ordinary skill in
the art. Moreover, we observe that the aforementioned
claim language further lacks clarity on consideration of the
meaning thereof in light of the seemingly inconsistent language
of original claim 4 of parent Application No. 07/896,935,3
which claim recites a salt of haloplatinic acid as a reactant
for forming the catalyst salt.
Appellants' comments, of record, have been considered but
are not found convincing of the compliance of the above-noted
language with the requirements of the second paragraph of 35
U.S.C. § 112 for the reasons expressed above. We note that
claims may be rejected as being indefinite if they do not
3We note that appellants should compare the claim
language herein with the language of claim 4 of their U.S.
Patent No. 5,583,194, which issued from application No.
08/195,792 filed as a division of the same application (Appl.
No. 07/896,935) that is identified as the parent application
of the present continuation application. A copy of this patent
is being forwarded to appellants together with this decision.
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