Appeal No. 1997-3823
Application No. 08/320,782
which renders the subject matter thereof indefinite.
Accordingly we find that it is not possible to apply the prior
art relied upon by the examiner to these claims in deciding
the question of obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 without
resorting to considerable speculation and conjecture as to the
meaning of the language “said earphone coupled to said frame
through a wire” in the claims. This being the case, we are
constrained to reverse the examiner’s rejection of claims 46
through 51 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 in light of the holding in In re Steele, 305
F.2d 859, 862-63, 134 USPQ 292, 295 (CCPA 1962). We hasten to
add that this reversal of the examiner’s rejection is not
based on the merits of the rejection, but on technical grounds
relating to the indefiniteness of the appealed claims.
We next review the examiner’s rejection of independent
claims 52 and 57 and claims 53-54 and 58-59 which depend
therefrom under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over
Furness in view of Landis. Independent claims 52 and 57
require a head mounted display system comprising a display,
optics for collimating light, at least one transparency, and a
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