Appeal No. 1999-1349
Application No. 08/110,115 Page 4
paragraph and § 103 rejections are not well founded.
Accordingly, we will not sustain the examiner’s rejections.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph
The relevant inquiry under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph, is whether the claim language, as it would have been
interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art in light of
appellants’ specification and the prior art, sets out and
circumscribes a particular area with a reasonable degree
of precision and particularity. See In re Moore, 439 F.2d 1232,
1235, 169 USPQ 236, 238 (CCPA 1971).
The examiner’s concern is with an alleged ambiguity in
appellants’ use of the claim language “at least as low as
approximately minus 5°C” and “for a period of no more than about
5 seconds” as appear in the appealed claims.1 According to the
examiner, the use of those phrases results in the recitation of a
broad range or limitation together with a narrow range or
limitation rendering the claims indefinite.
Subjective terms such as “approximately,” and “about” are
not necessarily indefinite and unclear. When a word of degree is
used, the question is whether one of ordinary skill in the
1 The latter phrase only appears in claims 8-11.
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