Appeal No. 1998-1827 Page 5
Application No. 08/644,932
the appealed claims, including claims 18 and 22, as that
language 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.
The examiner’s questioning of the structural relationship
of the first and second material to each other and to the
detector as recited in claim 18 and the examiner’s questioning
of how the recited positioning of claim 22 would enable the
visual appearance of the first and second materials (answer,
pages 5 and 7) appears to be premised on the examiner’s
concern with claim breadth and/or enablement rather than with
the establishment of any actual ambiguity or indefiniteness of
the language employed by appellants.
As explained by appellants (brief, pages 4 and 5), the
claim language in question is reasonably definite. Here, we
are in agreement with appellants’ position since the examiner
has not shown that the claims, in question, do not define
appellants’ device with a reasonable degree of precision and
clarity, especially when read in light of appellants’
specification.
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