Appeal No. 2004-0529
Application No. 09/328,931
OPINION
In reaching our conclusion on the issues raised in this
appeal, this panel of the Board has carefully considered
appellant's specification and claims, and the respective
viewpoints of appellant and the examiner. As a consequence of
our review, we make the determinations which follow.
As explained, infra, in a new ground of rejection under
35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, a review of appellant's claims
1 through 4 reveals to us language that renders the metes and
bounds of the claims indeterminate, and hence indefinite. Under
these circumstances, it would be inappropriate on our part to
speculate as the meaning and scope of the claimed subject matter
in an attempt to assess the rejections of these claims on appeal
relative to the applied prior art. It follows that we are
constrained to procedurally reverse all of the examiner's
rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b). It should be well
understood, however, that this procedural reversal is not a
statement as to the relevancy of the references applied by the
examiner in the rejections on appeal. See In re Steele, 305 F.2d
859, 862-63, 134 USPQ 292, 295-96 (CCPA 1962).
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