Appeal No. 2002-0532
Application No. 09/069,457 Page 2
insulator assemblies (specification, page 1). An understanding
of the invention can be derived from a reading of exemplary claim
1, which is reproduced as follows:
1. A lamp element cover, the cover comprising:
a housing for covering part of a lamp; and
a wall extending away from the housing for encircling a
contact on the lamp and extending in a first direction away from
the housing a distance sufficient to encircle at least 25% of the
length of the contact on the lamp and wherein at least part of
the wall is dimensioned so as to allow a mating contact for the
lamp contact to be inserted inside the wall and removed without
damaging the wall.
The prior art references of record relied upon by the
examiner in rejecting the appealed claims are:
Frensch 2,774,947 Dec. 18, 1956
Robertson et al.(Robertson) 5,904,415 May 18, 1999
(filed June 26, 1996)
Claims 1-332 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, as being indefinite.
Claims 1-11 and 13-33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
2 In an amendment (Paper No. 17, filed September 8, 2000) appellant
added claims 27-32, as well as an additional set of claims erroneously
numbered 30-33, instead of 33-36. Appellant subsequently submitted two
amendments (Paper no. 23, filed July 9, 2001 and Paper No. 26, filed August 6,
2001) in attempts to correct the numbering of the claims. However, the
amendments were denied entry by the examiner (Paper No. 25, mailed July 25,
2001 and Paper No. 27, mailed August 22, 2001). It is no altogether clear as
to why appellant was not permitted to renumber the claims under 37 CFR
§ 1.126. Nevertheless, because the claims have not been renumbered, we shall
refer to these claims as "misnumbered claims 30-33." Because the examiner
refers to specific language of the misnumbered claims in the rejection of the
claims under 35 U.S.C. §112, second paragraph, we consider these claims to
have been considered by the examiner, and included in both the rejection under
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as well as the rejection under 35 U.S.C.
§ 102(e).
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