Appeal No. 1996-2959
Application 08/399,853
respective positions of the appellants and the examiner with
regard to the merits of these rejections.2
DISCUSSION
I. The 35 U.S.C. § 112, fourth paragraph, rejection
Claim 4 depends from independent claim 1 and defines the
channels recited in the parent claim to be “arranged in parallel
to one another on said support.” In the examiner’s view, this
recitation fails to further limit the subject matter set forth in
claim 1, thereby making claim 4 an improper dependent claim under
§ 112, ¶ 4,3 because “[i]ndependent claim 1 require[s] the
channels to have an angle ‘not equal to zero’. Claim 4 does not
further limit claim 1 because it is directed to parallel channels
that would have an angle equal to zero” (answer, page 3).
This criticism rests on a faulty interpretation of parent
claim 1 which in actuality requires the angle in question to be
formed between the flow axis of each of the at least two
2 The examiner entered the above rejections for the first
time in the answer to replace the rejections set forth in the
final rejection (Paper No. 5).
3 35 U.S.C. § 112, fourth paragraph, states in pertinent
part that “a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to
a claim previously set forth and then specify a further
limitation of the subject matter claimed.”
3
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