Appeal No. 1996-3284
Application 08/154,864
alternative expressions, negative limitations, or any style of
expression or format of claim which makes clear the boundaries
of the subject matter for which protection is sought. As
noted by the court in In re Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210, 160 USPQ
226 (CCPA 1971), a claim may not be rejected solely because of
the type of language used to define the subject matter for
which patent protection is sought.
With this as background, we analyze the specific
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, made by the
Examiner of the claims on appeal. The Examiner contends
[answer, page 4] that “[c]laims 3, 4, and 9 are inaccurate
because the 'elements' do not produce collimated beams.”
Appellant argues [brief, pages 19 to 20] that “[in] some
embodiments of applicant’s invention, the light sources,
themselves, produce collimated light ... . In other
embodiments, non-collimated sources (e.g. LEDs) are used in
conjunction with collimating optics (e.g. lenslets). The term
'elements' may be read on ... laser sources, and may be read
on ... collimating optics.”
We do appreciate the Appellant’s arguments. However,
-8-
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