Appeal No. 2001-1563
Application No. 09/151,580
Reference is made to the Examiner's Answer (Paper No. 15,
mailed January 5, 2001) for the examiner's complete reasoning in
support of the rejections, and to appellants' Brief (Paper
No. 14, filed November 16, 2000) for appellants' arguments
thereagainst.
OPINION
We have carefully considered the claims, the applied prior
art references, and the respective positions articulated by
appellants and the examiner. As a consequence of our review, we
will reverse the indefiniteness rejection of claim 9, the
anticipation rejection of claims 1 through 3, 6 through 9, and
16, and the obviousness rejection of claim 10.
The examiner (Answer, pages 3-4) rejects claim 9 under 35
U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, asserting that the claimed IS-136
specification is indefinite. Specifically, the examiner argues
that "specifications and standards change over time, hence, it is
inappropriate to have the scope of a claim change with time."
The examiner asserts that "[i]f the scope of the invention sought
to be patented cannot be determined from the language of the
claims, a second paragraph rejection is appropriate."
Appellants argue (Brief, page 5) that (a) "the Examiner has
not shown that the specifications have changed since the date of
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