Appeal No. 2001-0685 Page 7
Application No. 09/171,613
We will not sustain the rejection of claims 2 to 4, 7 and 2
11 under 35 U.S.C. § 103. We have reviewed Bartlett and the
Cicio reference additionally applied in the rejection of claim
2 but find nothing therein which makes up for the deficiencies
of Bartlett discussed above. That is, nothing in the combined
teachings of the applied prior art would have made it obvious3
at the time the invention was made to a person of ordinary
skill in the art to have modified the curved portion of
Bartlett's end limit periphery 20 to be a curve having a
continuously tapered radius of curvature as set forth in claim
1 on appeal. Accordingly, we cannot sustain the examiner's
rejection of appealed claims 2 to 4, 7 and 11 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103.
2Claim 7 includes the phrase "reeding or the like." The
examiner should determine if this phrase complies with
definiteness requirement of the second paragraph of 35 U.S.C.
§ 112 (i.e., that the claim language define the metes and
bounds thereof with a reasonable degree of precision and
particularity. See In re Venezia, 530 F.2d 956, 958, 189 USPQ
149, 151 (CCPA 1976)).
3The test for obviousness is what the combined teachings
of the references would have suggested to one of ordinary
skill in the art. See In re Young, 927 F.2d 588, 591, 18
USPQ2d 1089, 1091 (Fed. Cir. 1991) and In re Keller, 642 F.2d
413, 425, 208 USPQ 871, 881 (CCPA 1981).
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