Appeal No. 2002-0234
Application No. 09/496,087
examiner asserts that in lines 7-8 of claim 1, improper
alternative claiming is present.
After reviewing appellant's specification and the above
enumerated claims in light thereof, and also in light of
appellant's arguments in their brief (pages 7-8), it is our
opinion that the scope and content of the subject matter embraced
by claims 1 through 4 on appeal is reasonably clear and definite,
and fulfills the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph. In our view, the examiner's criticism of the language
used in those claims, or the lack thereof, goes to the breadth of
the claims and not to indefiniteness. It is well settled that
breadth alone is not to be equated with indefiniteness and that
in determining whether a claim sets out and circumscribes a
particular area with a reasonable degree of precision and
particularity, the definiteness of the language employed in the
claim 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 by one possessing the
ordinary level of skill in the pertinent art. See In re Johnson,
558 F.2d 1008, 1016 n.17, 194 USPQ 187, 194 n.17 (CCPA 1977).
When that standard of evaluation is applied to claims 1 through 4
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