Appeal No. 2001-1808
Application 08/987,487
have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a
person having ordinary skill in the art.
Accordingly, we shall not sustain the standing 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) rejection of claims 1 and 5, and of claims 2 through
4 which depend from claim 1, as being obvious over Kuoksa.
IV. New ground of rejection
The following rejection is entered pursuant to 37 CFR
§ 1.196(b).
Claim 1, and claims 2 through 4 which depend therefrom,
are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as
failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the
subject matter the appellant regards as the invention.
The second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112 requires claims
to set out and circumscribe a particular area with a
reasonable degree of precision and particularity. In re
Johnson, 558 F.2d 1008, 1015, 194 USPQ 187, 193 (CCPA 1977).
In determining whether this standard is met, the definiteness
of the language employed in the claims must be analyzed, not
in a vacuum, but
always in light of the teachings of the prior art and of the
particular application disclosure as it would be interpreted
8
Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Next
Last modified: November 3, 2007