Appeal No. 2000-0206 Page 19
Application No. 08/699,328
regulatory or warning traffic sign.6 While appellant's
specification (p. 5) indicates that secondary symbols
representing shapes of objects such as an arrow head may be used,
the language of claims 5, 6 and 16 is more limited than that
disclosure. In my view, the claim language precludes sign shapes
and objects used in applications other than regulatory or warning
traffic signs, even if those shapes or objects are also used in
warning or regulatory traffic signs. By way of example,
appellant points out that arrows are used in guide signs. For
this reason, and not for the reason cited by my colleagues, I
concur in the decision of my colleagues not to sustain the
examiner's rejection of claim 16. As claims 5 and 6 contain
similar limitations, the rejection of these claims also should
not be sustained, notwithstanding appellant's grouping of these
claims with claim 15 (brief, p. 2).
I concur with my colleagues' decision to enter a new
rejection of claims 6 and 16 because the turn arrows of the R67
and R61-36 signs are used on regulatory signs and there is no
6 In this regard, however, I do note that the octagon
symbols in appellant's disclosed embodiments would not appear to
meet the very strict requirement set forth in claim 16.
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