Appeal No. 2001-2115
Reissue Application 08/433,986
a verbatim incantation of some 'magic words' in order to satisfy
the requirements of § 251" (Br7). The Examiner does not respond
to this argument and does not deny that the rejection is based on
failure to recite the exact words of 37 CFR § 1.175.
We agree with Appellant that the oath or declaration does
not need to recite the language of Rule 1.175 verbatim (although
the problems could have been avoided by sticking to the wording
of the rule and no reasons have been presented why the
declaration was not drafted to more closely follow the rule).
The old Rule 1.175(a)(6) required a statement under oath or
declaration "[s]tating that said errors arose 'without any
deceptive intention' on the part of the applicant," where the
quotation marks suggest that exact words are required. However,
when the new Rule 1.175 was enacted, it was stated that "[t]he
quotes around lack of deceptive intent, currently found in
§ 1.175(a)(6), are removed as the exact language is not
required." See Changes to Patent Practice and Procedure ,
1203 Off. Gaz. 63 (Sep. 26, 1997). The other sections of old
Rule 1.175 do not contain any quote marks suggesting that exact
language is required. We interpret the new (and old) Rule 1.175
to describe the requirements of the oath or declaration, not to
state the exact language which must be used.
The Examiner's rejection is based on the strictly technical
ground that the declaration does not contain the exact language
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