Appeal No. 1998-0607 Page 2
Application No. 08/506,857
BACKGROUND
The appellants' invention relates to a modular screen washing and wiping apparatus for
a windshield of a vehicle. An understanding of the invention can be derived from a reading of
exemplary claim 1, which appears in the appendix to the appellants' brief.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the examiner in rejecting the appealed
claims are:
Miller 4,911,545 Mar. 27, 1990
Charles 5,009,459 Apr. 23, 19911
Eustache et al. (Eustache) 588,708 Mar. 23, 19942
(European patent application)
The following rejections stand before us for review.3
(1) Claims 1-5 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as being indefinite
for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the appellants
regard as the invention.
While it appears that the Miller and Charles patents, along with the Hou and Kogita patents discussed1
infra, were cited by the examiner in Paper No. 2 (see page 4 and action summary sheet thereof), our review of the
application file did not reveal a copy of the citation of references (PTO-892) contained in the file.
An English language translation of this reference, prepared by the Patent and Trademark Office, is2
appended hereto.
The first issue raised in the appellants' brief (whether the drawings are properly objected to under3
37 CFR § 1.83) relates to a petitionable matter and not to an appealable matter. See Manual of Patent Examining
Procedure (MPEP) §§ 1002 and 1201. Accordingly, we will not review this issue.
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