Appeal No. 2002-0532
Application No. 09/069,457 Page 4
rationale in support of the rejections and arguments in rebuttal
set forth in the examiner's answer.
Upon consideration of the record before us, we affirm-in-
part.
We begin with the rejection of claims 1-32 and misnumbered
claims 30-33 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph. Claims are
considered to be definite, as required by the second paragraph of
35 U.S.C. § 112, when they define the metes and bounds of a
claimed invention with a reasonable degree of precision and
particularity. See In re Venezia, 530 F.2d 956, 958, 189 USPQ
149, 151 (CCPA 1976).
The examiner's position is that in claim 1, the language "a
housing for covering part of a lamp; and a wall extending away
from the housing" is confusing and vague. The examiner argues
(answer, page 3) to the effect that since the specification (page
25) discloses that the wall is part of the housing, it is unclear
as to how the wall can extend away from the housing. From our
review of the specification and drawing, we find that as
illustrated in figure 33, 442 represents a housing, and 475
represents a wall that extends away from the housing 442. We see
nothing inherently wrong with describing wall 475 as extending
away from the housing. With respect to the examiner's assertion
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