Appeal No. 2002-1590 Page 6
Application No. 09/511,516
U.S.C. § 102 or obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) without
resorting to considerable speculation and conjecture as to
exactly what the structure of the claimed pedal assembly is and
as to what the exact meaning of the above questioned limitation
in independent claim 1 may be. This being the case, we are
constrained to reverse the examiner's above-noted rejections of
appealed claims 1, 2 and 6 through 8 based on the applied prior
art in light of the holding in In re Steele,305 F.2d 859 134 USPQ
292 (CCPA 1962). We hasten to add that this reversal of the
examiner's rejections is not based on the merits of the
rejections, but only on technical grounds relating to the
indefiniteness of the appealed claims.1
We turn now to the examiner’s rejection of claims 9 through
12 and 17 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) as being anticipated by Hjerpe
(Figure 1). As noted on pages 13 and 14 of the brief,
independent claim 9 sets forth a releasable pedal system for an
automotive vehicle, wherein the system includes a control
mechanism “for preventing relative movement between said first
and second rod members during normal vehicle operation” (emphasis
added) and which is “operable to allow for relative movement
1 As mere guidance to the examiner and appellants, we note that it would
appear that the amendments proposed for claim 1 in Paper No. 7, filed July 30,
2001, and refused entry by the examiner, would overcome the rejection of claim
1 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, and also define over the two prior
art references to Hjerpe and Okuhara applied by the examiner.
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