Appeal No. 1998-1146 Page 6
Application No. 08/410,177
Said claims are indefinite in failing to recite
either the boiling point at a specified pressure or
the vapor pressure at a specified temperature to
define the azeotropic or azeotropic-like
compositions.... A single boiling point (at a
particular pressure) is the characteristic by which
the presence or absence of an azeotrope is
determined. Therefore by failing to define this
critical, defining characteristic applicant fails to
particularly point out and distinctly claim the
inventive subject matter.
The examiner, however, does not carry the burden of
persuasively explaining why the language of the appealed
claims, as it would have been interpreted by one of ordinary
skill in the art in light of appellants’ specification,
drawings and the prior art, fails to set out and circumscribe
a particular area with a reasonable degree of precision and
particularity.
We give the terms of the appealed claims their ordinary
meaning unless we find that another meaning is intended by
appellants. See In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44
USPQ2d 1023, 1027 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319,
321-22, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1996). Here, as
explained by appellants in their specification (page 6, lines
10-25), any of the compositions made up of the specified
components in the specified amounts have "properties which are
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