Appeal No. 2004-1822
Application No. 09/550,863
Larkin, and Hendershot.
Claims 4 and 111 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103 as
being unpatentable over DeJaco and Fujiwara and further in view
of Sears.
Claims 5-7, 12, and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103
as being unpatentable over DeJaco and Fujiwara and further in
view of Snapp.
On page 6 of the supplemental brief, appellants group the
claims into four groupings. Based upon these groupings, we
select the broadest claim from each group, which are: claims 1,
5, 8, and 12. Also, to the extent that any other claim is argued
separately, we consider such claim in this appeal.
OPINION
We have carefully reviewed appellants’ supplemental brief
and reply brief, and the examiner’s answer, and applied art in
making the determinations below. We refer to these papers
regarding the respective positions in this appeal.
I. The 35 U.S.C. §112, second paragraph (indefiniteness)
rejection
We refer to page 2 of the Office action of Paper No. 10 with
regard to the examiner’s position in this rejection. Basically,
the examiner asserts that the term “echo” is used in a way that
is contrary to its ordinary meaning, and because appellants’
written description does not clearly re-define this term, the
examiner concludes that the term is indefinite. The examiner
states that the term should be changed to a loop back plug.
1 Claims 4 and 11 depend from claims 1 and 8, respectively, but are
rejected on less than the total number of references used to reject
claims 1 and 8.
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