Appeal No. 2004-1908
Application No. 09/176,374 Page 4
of precision and particularity. See In re Moore, 439 F.2d 1232,
1235, 169 USPQ 236, 238 (CCPA 1971).
The examiner maintains that “a curved surface cannot lie
within a plane” in asserting that claims 5, 6, 8, 9 and 16-18 are
indefinite.
However, a curved surface is not required to be planar by
the claim language in question as the examiner appears to
suggest. Rather, the so rejected claims require a surface that
has a curved edge (“a curved edge surface”) to lie within a
plane. See, e.g., the planar surface having a curved edge in
appellant’s drawing figure 11. Thus, we do not agree that the
examiner’s expressed concern amounts to a violation of the
provisions of the second paragraph of 35 U.S.C. § 112.
Consequently, we reverse the 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph
rejection put forward by the examiner.
Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
Machida discloses a method of manufacturing a spiral
electrode assembly wherein, in a first winding step, a separator
portion of one electrode that is longer than the diameter of a
spool is wound about the spool and then a leading edge portion of
a second electrode (element 4, Figure 5) is begun to be wound
around the spool together with the electrode that includes the
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