Appeal No. 2004-0267
Application 09/847,224
The examiner considers claims 6, 23, 59, 67, and 69 to be
alternative and indefinite (FR2).3
There is nothing inherently indefinite about the use of
alternative expressions: the claims can be met by any one of the
alternative limitations. The examiner has not pointed to any
other language in the claims that would be indefinite. The
rejection of claims 6, 23, 59, 67, and 69 on the grounds of
alternative language is reversed.
35 U.S.C. § 102(b)
Appellant argues that Saban and Reedy each fail to teach
"autonomously determining a pattern," and that the examiner has
failed to identify any teaching of this limitation (Br10).
The examiner states (EA4):
These references have been applied as art which shows all
claimed elements, when the claims are read in view of the
very broad and indefinite claim language noted above. The
heart of the invention, as claimed, is "autonomously
determining a pattern from the ascertained target
information" and since the language allows no precise
determination of what pattern is being determined, the prior
art is believed to read over the language of the claims.
In the final rejection, the examiner refers to Saban, column 12,
lines 10-45, and column 4, line 40 to column 8, line 60 (FR2).
3 It is noted alternative language also appears in
claims 3, 7, 9, 26, 40, 43, 53, 56, which have not been rejected.
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