Appeal No. 1999-0218
Application 08/691,889
Pursuant to 37 CFR § 1.196(b), we are hereby rejecting
claims 1-19, i.e., all of the appealed claims, under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, second paragraph, on the ground that the terms
"exactly" and "approximate" in the preambular phrase "exactly
indicating the approximate time" in claims 1, 10, and 19 are
contradictory and thus render indefinite those claims and
their dependent claims. The following discussion of the § 102
and § 103 rejections presumes that the preambles of claims 1,
10, and 19 do not include the term "exactly."
E. The merits of the § 102 rejection
Beguin discloses a watch which gives the approximate time
(col. 1, ll. 21-23) and is also waterproof because it has no
stem for winding the watch or setting the time (col. 1, ll.
56-59). The watch has a single hand 7, which in the
embodiment depicted in the figures takes three hours to
complete one rotation (col. 2, 11. 26-27). The watch does 2
not have indications representing each minute. Instead, as
2Alternatively, the hand can be made to complete one
rotation in one, two, four, six, or twelve hours (Beguin,
col. 3, ll. 31-34).
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