Appeal No. 1999-1965
Application 08/529,230
previously recited. Applicant is advised to
carefully review the rest of the claims to
obviate this issue.
ii) Claim 20 is vague and indefinite in that it is
not clear what the claim encompasses. What is
the “combination” in line 1 referring to?
A “combination” has not been recited
in independent claim 19 [answer, page 4].
Neither of these concerns is well taken. The references
to “a label” in claims 5 and 17 (from which claims 6 and 18
depend, respectively) are made in a functional context to
define how the claimed subject matter works. As such, they do
not pose a double inclusion problem. Furthermore, although
“dispenser” claim 19 does not explicitly include the word
“combination,” it is in fact a combination claim. In this
light, the reference in the preamble of claim 20 to the
“combination as recited in claim 19" is readily understood to
refer to the combination of dispenser elements recited in
claim 19. 3
Thus, the claim limitations targeted by the examiner are
not indefinite. Accordingly, we shall not sustain the
3Nonetheless, the appellants might find it desirable for
the sake of consistency to carry through on their offer (see
page 5 in the main brief) to amend claim 19 by changing
“combination” to --dispenser--.
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