Appeal No. 1997-2436
Application No. 08/232,014
support that proposition.
It is well established that "definiteness of the language employed must be analyzed,
not in a vacuum, but always in light of the prior art and of the particular application
disclosure as it would be interpreted by one possessing the ordinary level of skill in the
pertinent art." In re Moore, 439 F.2d 1232, 1235, 169 USPQ 236, 238 (CCPA 1971). We
note that the purpose of the second paragraph of Section 112 is basically to insure, with a
reasonable degree of particularity, an adequate notification of the metes and bounds of
what is being claimed. See In re Hammack, 427 F.2d 1378, 1382, 166 USPO 204, 208
(CCPA 1970). When claim 24 is viewed in light of this authority, it does not reasonably
appear that one skilled in the art would be capable of determining the metes and bounds
of claim 24 even when read in light of the specification. The remaining claims do not clarify
this ambiguity. Therefore, we reject representative claim 24, and claims 3-23 and 25-50
under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as failing to particularly point out and distinctly
claim the subject matter which the applicants regard as their invention.
The rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 102/103 and obvious double patenting
For reasons stated infra in our new ground of rejection under 37 CFR § 1.196(b),
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