Appeal No. 2004-1805
Application No. 09/928,359
Appellant responds to this rejection on pages 2-3 of the
brief. We have carefully reviewed appellant’s position, and our
determinations are set forth below.
We note that the purpose of the second paragraph of Section
112 is to basically insure, with a reasonable degree of
particularity, an adequate notification of the metes and bounds
of what is being claimed. See In re Hammack, 427 F.2d 1378,
1382, 166 USPQ 204, 208 (CCPA 1970).
We also note that the court stated in In re Moore, 439 F.2d
1232, 1235, 169 USPQ 236, 238 (CCPA 1971), that the
determination of whether the claims of an application satisfy
the requirements of the second paragraph of Section 112 is
To determine whether the claims do, in fact, set
out and circumscribe a particular area with a
reasonable degree of precision and
particularity. It is here where the definiteness
of language employed 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. [footnote omitted.]
With regard to the claimed phrase “a line collinear [sic,
colinear] with said free edge of said third panel”, we refer to
the paragraph bridging pages 6 and 7 of appellant’s
specification. Figure 5 is discussed in this paragraph. On
page 6, beginning at line 36, the specification indicates that
the second panel 14 illustrated in Figure 5 has a notch made
from free edges 134 and 136. On page 7, at lines 2-3, the
specification indicates that the free edge 134 extends from the
edge 136 to the bottom of the third panel 16.
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