Appeal No. 2000-1782
Application No. 08/933,639
15) for the respective positions of the appellants and the
examiner with regard to the merits of these rejections.
DISCUSSION
I. The 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, rejection of claims
1 through 4, 7 and 18
The basis for this rejection is the examiner’s
determination that
[t]he term “of the type” in claim 1 is a relative
term which renders the claim indefinite. The term
“of the type” is not defined by the claim, the
specification does not provide a standard for
ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of
ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably
apprised of the scope of the invention [answer,
pages 3 and 4].3
This criticism is not relevant to claims 7 and 18 which
do not depend from, or have any other connection to, claim 1.
Moreover, contrary to the examiner’s analysis, the “of the
type” language at issue is neither a relative term of degree
nor a term which is undefined in the claim.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C.
3According to the original explanation of this rejection
(see Paper No. 9), the examiner also considered claims 3, 7
and 18 to be indefinite due to their inclusion of the term
“or.” Upon reconsideration, the examiner has withdrawn this
concern (see page 3 in the answer).
4
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