Appeal No. 2001-1276
Application No. 09/122,519
Indefiniteness
As set forth in the final rejection (page 2), the examiner
considers the recitation of "or" followed by the recitation of
"and/or" in claim 1 to render the claim indefinite. We agree.
In the context used in claim 1, "or" appears to indicate
that a holding device is, alternatively, means establishing a
magnetic field passing through "the" conveyor belt or means
generating a vacuum at suction orifices of "the" conveyor belt.
However, later in the claim, the holding device is recited as
having at least one magnetic device with a magnetic conveyor belt
and at least one vacuum device with a vacuum conveyor belt, with
the magnetic device "and/or" the vacuum device together with
their respective belt being displaced relative to a common
reference member and being brought into contact with the
workpieces to be transported. The disparity between the
discussed recitations in the claim makes it apparent to us that
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007