Appeal No. 1998-3312
Application No. 08/354,803
particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter
which appellant regards as the invention. Specifically, claim
25 includes a recitation “all these rubbing means," which has
no antecedent basis in claim 25 or in claim 1 from which it
depends. We note that in Paper No. 8, received September 18,
1996, appellant attempted to change all of the occurrences of
“rubbing means” to --bearing means-- in the specification and
claims, including in claim 1. As presented by appellant in
the Reply Brief, the failure to correct claim 25 is an obvious
oversight and pre-authorizes the examiner to make the
correction when the Appeal is decided. Appellant’s
willingness to cooperate to fix the problem is greatly
appreciated, but the fact is that claim 25 includes a term
that has no antecedent basis. We also note that claim 18 also
includes the term “rubbing means” and should be addressed when
claim 25 is addressed.
In light of the forgoing, we shall sustain the standing
rejection of claim 25 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph.
Next we turn to the rejection of the claims on appeal
6
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007