Appeal No. 2002-1181 3
Application 09/576,154
OPINION
In reaching our decision in this appeal, we have given careful consideration to
the appellants’ specification and claims, to the applied prior art references, and to the
respective positions articulated by the appellants and the examiner. As a consequence
of our review, we make the determinations which follow.
The Rejection Under The Second Paragraph Of Section 112
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 making this
determination, 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 by one possessing the
ordinary level of skill in the pertinent art. Id. Evaluating the three issues raised by the
examiner in this rejection in the light of this guidance from our reviewing court leads us
to conclude that the rejection should not be sustained.
The first issue raised by the examiner under this rejection is that independent
claims 1, 8 and 17 are indefinite because the description of the container as having an
annular neck, a rounded bottom surface and a container side wall having a portion that
is spaced from the rounded bottom surface “does not support” the functional limitation
“so that” an outer three-dimensional space is disposed between the side wall portion
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