Appeal No. 1999-2347
Application 08/892,560
optionally with Woo, as applied to claim 21, further in view of
Balda or Woo.
We refer to the final rejection (Paper No. 30) (pages
referred to as "FR__") and the examiner's answer (Paper No. 38)
(pages referred to as "EA__") for a statement of the Examiner's
position, and to the revised brief on appeal (Paper No. 37)
(pages referred to as "Br__") for a statement of Appellants'
arguments thereagainst.
OPINION
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph
The Examiner concludes that the term "low" in the limitation
"low selective etch" is indefinite and that the scope of the
limitation cannot be determined (FR2; EA5).
Appellants argue that the rejection is "nonsensical" because
the Examiner discusses low selectivity etching in rejecting
claim 27 and when discussing Stocker (Br7).
The Examiner responds that a rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112
does not preclude a rejection under §§ 102 or 103 (EA29).
We agree with the Examiner that inconsistent rejections are
permitted. This avoids piecemeal examination, which is to
Appellants' benefit. In any case, the Examiner never admitted
that the meaning of "low" was known, as argued by Appellants.
The Examiner clearly rejected claim 27 based on the best
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