Appeal No. 1999-1960
Application No. 09/075,631
presence or absence of condensate within the valve body
(specification, page 14; brief, page 14).
As to the examiner’s determination that the claims are
indefinite because the recitation “for operating said solenoid
in real-time” in claim 20 is unduly functional and not
supported by sufficient structure, it is by now well settled
that there is nothing intrinsically wrong in defining
something by what it does rather than by what it is. In re
Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210, 212, 169 USPQ 226, 228 (CCPA 1971).
Judging from the examiner’s remarks, it appears that his
concern is with the breadth of the claims rather than with any
indefinite language therein. Admittedly, claim 20 covers any
and all drain valves that include an electric control circuit
that connects the sensor and the solenoid and operates the
solenoid in “real-time” response to the sensor’s detection of
condensate, and that meets the requirements called for
elsewhere in the claim. This does not, however, make the
claim indefinite. Instead, it simply makes the claim broad.
Breadth, however, is not be to equated with indefiniteness.
See, for example, In re Miller, 441 F.2d 689, 693, 169 USPQ
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