Appeal No. 2002-1598 Page 5
Application No. 09/596,975
method to which the examiner referred, and thus it is our conclusion that this is
evidence that the disputed information was in the appellant’s possession at the time the
application was filed.
The rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, first paragraph is not sustained.
The Rejection Under The Second Paragraph Of Section 112
The examiner raises four matters in this indefiniteness1 rejection. The first is that
claim 21 is indefinite because it is not clear how “automatically” as now inserted in the
claim “is intended to further limit the method” (Paper No. 6, page 2). As was argued by
the appellant, this term distinguishes the method from non-automatic techniques, and
we agree that its use does not cause the claim to be indefinite.
The second issue raised by the examiner is that it is not clear in claim 39
whether or not “a vehicle” in line 2 is the same vehicle recited in claim 21. The
appellant has pointed out that claim 39 was amended to change “a” to “the” in this
instance, which would remove any semblance of a problem in interpreting the claim.
We agree.
1The second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112 requires claims to set out and circumscribe a
particular area with a reasonable degree of precision and particularity. In re Johnson, 558 F.2d 1008,
1015, 194 USPQ 187, 193 (CCPA 1977). In making this determination, the definiteness of the language
employed in the claims must be analyzed, not in a vacuum, but always in light of the teachings of the prior
art and of the particular application disclosure as it would be interpreted by one possessing the ordinary
level of skill in the pertinent art. Id.
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