Appeal No. 1998-2726
Application 08/440,991
In reaching our decision on the issues raised in this
appeal, we have carefully assessed the claims, the prior art
applied against the claims, and the respective views of the
examiner and the appellants as set forth in the Answers and
the Briefs. As a result of our review, we have determined
that none of the rejections should be sustained. Our
reasoning in support of this conclusion follows.
The Rejection Under 35 U.S.C. § 112, Second Paragraph
The examiner has rejected claim 16 as being indefinite on
the basis of the presence of inconsistent language and lack of
proper antecedent basis for terms and elements recited in the
claim. While the examiner’s comments technically are correct,
it is our view that the matters raised are not of such
magnitude as to preclude one of ordinary skill in the art from
understanding the invention defined in the claim, and
therefore we will not sustain this rejection. This does not
mean, however, that the claim language would not be improved
by amendment to eliminate the discrepancies.
The Rejections Under 35 U.S.C. § 103
The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings
of the prior art would have suggested to one of ordinary skill
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