Appeal No. 1996-3284
Application 08/154,864
regarding claim 3 or claim 4, we are persuaded by the Examiner
[answer, page 4] that “[t]he collimating means [and, not each
element] produce collimated beams.” We also find, by the
Appellant’s own argument above, that if there were, in the
system, separate collimating means, the light source does not
need to produce a collimated beam. Yet, that is what the
limitation “wherein each element produces a collimated light
...” (claim 3 or 4, last three lines) implies. We find this
vague and indefinite. Therefore, we sustain the rejection of
claims 3 and 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.
However, we find no such recitation involving “each element”
in claim 9. Therefore, we do not sustain the Section 112,
second paragraph rejection of claim 9.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102
The Examiner has rejected claims 3 to 9 as being
anticipated by Ciongoli.
At the outset, we note that we have sustained the Section
112, second paragraph rejection of claims 3 and 4 above. We
emphasize here that claims 3 and 4 each contains unclear
language which renders the subject matter thereof indefinite
for the reasons stated supra under our discussion of the
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