Appeal No. 1999-2446 Page 7
Application No. 08/705,592
precise as the examiner might desire. If the scope of the
invention sought to be patented can be determined from the
language of the claims with a reasonable degree of certainty,
a rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, is inappropriate.
Thus, the appellant may use functional language,
alternative expressions, negative limitations, or any style of
expression or format of claim which makes clear the boundaries
of the subject matter for which protection is sought. As
noted by the Court in In re Swinehart, 439 F.2d 210, 160 USPQ
226 (CCPA 1971), a claim may not be rejected solely because of
the type of language used to define the subject matter for
which patent protection is sought.
With this as background, we turn to the specific
rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, made by the
examiner of the claims on appeal. With respect to independent
claim 6, the examiner stated (answer, pp. 4-5) that there was
insufficient structure recited in the claim to support the
limitation that the wood fragments "do not have smooth
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